Marketing Immigrants in Czech Basketball

As the labor force becomes more global in sport, what are the ramifications to marketing the sport, both to fans and to youth to play the game? The shift from teams composed predominantly of players from the home culture to teams including outsiders creates a necessary concurrent shift in the marketing and promotional strategy of teams. The foreigners are often the stars of the team and can even become the role models within the club, yet their cultural distance makes it necessary to rethink if and how they can be used to grow the game in the city, region and culture. Czech basketball has shown a marked shift not only in the use of foreigners on the court, from 11 across the league in 1998 to 50 in 2010, but also in the use of foreigners in marketing and youth development. How is this exoticism in sport being marketed? By 2011, 71% of teams featured foreigners on their websites, 36% featured them on their media guides, and every team poster observed by the researcher had the face of a black player on it.