ABSTRACT
With the introduction of NBA expansion franchises to Toronto and Vancouver in the mid-1990s, Canadian sport media and marketers were forced to respond to the demands of a league defined by its successes linking professional sport with entertainment spectacle.1 The NBA and affiliated advertisers (e.g. Nike) are renowned for their ability to promote ultra-appealing athletes like Michael Jordan to global icon status, while setting a stage for other notable players to become high-priced celebrities in local and national markets. In Canada, sport journalists and advertisers alike embraced the challenge of educating Canadian audiences about the NBA product and its personalities. Of course, in a league where about 80 percent of the participants are African-American, this inevitably meant disseminating messages about race.
