A routine project that does little more for Penn students than ruin their weekends ended up doing a lot more for one College undergraduate.
It made him one of the most recognizable names in basketball apparel.
Seth Berger, a 1989 College graduate who earned his MBA from Wharton in 1993, took his love for basketball and knowledge of the sports apparel business and co-founded AND1, the basketball footwear and clothing company that is the No. 1 basketball shoe distributor in six countries. The company provides kicks for 20 percent of NBA players, sponsors a tour of the best amateur American players and produces a hit ESPN television show.
Berger's story begins with an assignment in his Introduction to Entrepreneurship class, in which he completed the design for a basketball store called The Hoop.
Such a project idea may seem unoriginal to many future investment bankers and consultants taking similar courses. However, it was the research and experience gained from this project that helped Berger find an untested business venture in sports apparel -- a basketball niche brand to compete with massive multi-sport companies like Nike and adidas.
Berger made this premise the blueprint for his business plan, which he started developing his next year at school with a marketing database of fellow basketball enthusiasts, which he then sold to retailers and manufacturers for their own use.
Berger pursued the marketability of this database after getting his Wharton MBA, but soon came to a stark realization.
"That was an absolutely horrible business. ... None of them had any need for the database, because [those people] were already shopping at their store and buying their brands," he said.
"So I went back to New York City to sell T-shirts."
It was in the apparel business where Berger really saw the potential for a line specifically dedicated to basketball, as most apparel at the time was designed to encompass all types of athletes, while the uniqueness of basketball and its players required something more.
As a "hard-core basketball player" himself, Berger knew exactly what that "something" was.
"If you're a basketball player, you identity yourself as a basketball player, whether you play for the Knicks or Penn or if you play pick-up games three times per week," Berger said. "That's what our brand is for.
"When you're playing, you don't have time to think of funny or creative or aggressive lines. We do the talking for our player."
Berger here refers to the line of "trash talking" T-shirts that got AND1 off the ground in 1994. Designed to appeal to the attitudes of young players, the shirts featured such lines as "Your game's as ugly as your girl" and "Respect the game, leave the court."
With start-up funds from friends and family, Berger and childhood friend Jay Gilbert sold the shirts to a Foot Locker in New York, where they received excellent customer response.
The second prong of AND1's branding strategy focused on a physically superior icon known as "the Player," in which Berger wanted to "create the player for the next generation" and give it mass appeal by making "the Player" raceless and faceless.
"The Player" struck a chord with basketball players from all walks of life, and even moved some men to tattoo his likeness on their body.
NBA players "Brad Miller and Quentin Richardson; they're two Nike endorsers and they both have 'Players' tattooed on them," Berger said.
AND1's unanticipated success allowed the company to get into footwear, which now represents 70 percent of its revenue and is currently worn by 85 NBA players.
However, it is AND1's connection to the "street" style of basketball that keeps its name on the tongues of most basketball enthusiasts today.
AND1 brought playground techniques to the mainstream with its "mix tapes" of video footage of physics-defying on-court antics of amateur American players, which eventually grew into a 30-state basketball team tour and an ESPN TV show called "Streetball."
Ten years, thousands of stores and tens of millions of dollars later, Berger is proud of AND1's status as a brand that is worn by players on the hardwood and concrete.
"We are a basketball player's brand," he said. "We're not trying to be a huge brand because we don't have to be. ... We just have to be No. 1 basketball brand in the world."
Even with such status, Berger is proud to have the Penn basketball teams wear AND1 merchandise, noting that Penn men's head coach Fran "Dunphy is a great coach and a great person."
Berger attributed his success to the multiple facets of his Penn education.
"There's no way I could ever think of starting AND1 without my Wharton education," he said.
"An important part of my undergraduate education was the time I spent at Gimbel gym playing with guys from school and from the community. I grew up playing basketball and I continued that education at Penn, learning more about the game and, most importantly, loving the game."
