Dentsu already owns Calif.-based Athletes First.GETTY IMAGES
The NBA Players Association said that it reached a "broad agreement" with Japan's leading advertising agency, Dentsu Inc., to "develop content and create and stage global events that feature the union and its members," according to Scott Soshnick of BLOOMBERG. Until recently, that kind of collaboration was "functionally off-limits." For more than 20 years the NBA had paid the union -- last year, about $41M -- for the marketing and licensing rights to its 400-plus members. The league then "turned around and parceled them out to corporate partners and sponsors." The players union decided it could "do better making its own deals, and last year, took control of its own licensing and marketing deals." For Dentsu, the tie-up with some of the world’s "most popular athletes" will help "cement its sports foothold" in the U.S. It already owns Athletes First, a sports agency based in Laguna Hills, Calif. A separate entity, the newly-created Athletes First Properties, will "work closely" with Dentsu Aegis Network, a London-based consortium of companies that manages Dentsu’s business outside of Japan (BLOOMBERG, 2/14).