Taking Money From FUBU: NBA Looks Like Right Fit to Clothing Companies - USA Today

According to the USA Today's Mike McCarthy, clothing companies like Dockers are offering to outfit NBA Players with their latest fashions for the entire season and for a cost of $432,000.

"It would be a blast. It would be a lot of fun," says John Ordona, director of non-traditional marketing for Dockers, a unit of Levi Strauss & Co. that generated nearly $800 million in sales in 2004.

So would the players -- and even Commissioner David Stern -- get all the clothes for free? "We can talk about that when they give us a call," Ordona says.

Menswear designer Joseph Abboud is in negotiations to outfit up to 100 NBA players, according to Marty Staff, the fashion company's president and CEO. Joseph Abboud has an endorsement deal with New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury.

My take on this? I think the NBA's Dress Code is essentially taking money away from such brands as FUBU, which has a huge following within the NBA and in African American culture.

FUBU is an African-American-owned, New York-based urban sportswear empire started in 1992 by five childhood friends from Queens. (The ubiquitous "05" on FUBU jerseys is a coded reference to these five founders.)

Its name is an acronym for "For Us, By Us," a slogan that expressed the founders' purpose of creating a line of popular clothing designed for African-Americans, by African-Americans. At the time of FUBU's inauguration, though numerous clothiers were targeting black consumers for their urban wear, none of these companies was black-owned or black-run.

Hopefully, FUBU and Sean John will push its more "mainstream" fashions and encourage NBA Players to wear them, now that the NBA dress code is in place. Regardless, some of the NBA stars of the past -- and who are black -- see the dress code a welcome change.

I met former NY Knicks guard Walt Frazier recently at Aqua, a great San Francisco Restaurant. Frazier -- in town for the Friday night Knicks game versus the Golden State Warriors -- said "I'm glad to see the dress code. You had brothas showing up at the Ritz Calrton in street wear. Come on now!"