Is there any team in the NBA, other than possibly the Knicks, that faced a tougher marketing issue heading into this season than the Washington Wizards. Last season was a disaster with their star player lost to a 50 game suspension and then the balance of the season in a halfway house for pulling a gun in the locker room. The team had built its entire marketing plan around Gilbert Arenas and Agent Zero really proved to be less than zero when it came to his effect on marketing the club as it did all it could to recover from the hit it took from his bone-headed action; this on the team whose owner changed its name from Bullets because of the implications of that nickname on the youth of DC.
The team was sold to Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Capitals, who is also the former marketing chief for AOL, way back when AOL really was something to be the chief marketer for - you know back before it was sold to Time Warner. Leonsis has put in motion major marketing plans, in areas big and little, which, with a little luck in the draft lottery, have already begun to pay substantial dividends. This year's marketing is not going to be centered on any one player, not even number one pick John Wall, but it will include several players, the owner and some of the more famous Bullets/Wizards of the past, names like Unseld, Monroe and Hayes. The Washington Post gives a quick overview of those plans and it makes interesting reading in how to bring a team back from a crisis and restore it to the center of a city's sporting consciousness.
