<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">ARLINGTON -- Stephon Marbury is the fifth-highest-paid athlete in the NBA, and no doubt the only point guard in the league planning to play this season in basketball shoes that sell for less than $15. The New York Knicks star will wear the Starbury One, the high-top sneaker that has become the top-selling product in his new Starbury line of shoes and clothing. Even Marbury was skeptical about the quality when the idea was first presented to him by the marketing and production team that developed Starbury, sold exclusively by Steve & Barry's University Sportswear retail chain. But soon he became convinced that if you sliced the shoes down the middle, they wouldn't look any different from other athlete-endorsed models that can cost more than 10 times as much. Marbury has been on the road this month to introduce Starbury to kids and parents, stopping at 34 Steve & Barry's stores across the country to sign autographs and promote the line. The 29-year-old, raised in a public housing project in Coney Island, sees Starbury as not a clothing line so much as a social movement against the pressures that lead many people to tie their self-esteem to their wardrobes. "What we're doing right now was really motivated by the way I grew up," Marbury said last week while visiting the Steve & Barry's store at The Parks at Arlington mall. "I understand how kids feel when they walk into a store and see a pair of shoes and aren't able to get them." The 50-item Starbury line features five shoe models, including the $14.98 Starbury Ones, along with $6.98 T-shirts, and shorts, track pants and denim jackets that sell for $9.98 apiece. Layne Arias, a ninth-grader who plays junior-varsity basketball at Wedgwood Academy in Fort Worth, normally wears And 1 sneakers. But he went to Steve & Barry's on Wednesday with his father to get Marbury's autograph and give the Starbury One a try. "Most of the shoes he likes are $100, so I love the idea of this," said his dad, Bill Arias. William Rosebud, a doorman at the Hilton Anatole hotel in Dallas, skipped the autograph line but left Steve & Barry's with four bulging shopping bags stuffed with clothes he had bought for himself and as a surprise for his 13-year-old son. "I think all the star athletes should drop the prices" on products they endorse, he said. "Everybody can't pay $80, $90, $100 for a pair of shoes. That's a real good thing he's doing," he said, pointing to the table where the tattooed Marbury was signing sneakers and taking pictures with customers. The early success of Starbury illustrates a shift in culture and marketing techniques, said Erin Patton, a former Air Jordan brand director at Nike whose marketing firm, the Mastermind Group, works with the Starbury brand. "For Air Jordan, at that point [in the 1990s], a $150 shoe was that badge item that reinforced your status," said Patton, who also teaches a sports marketing course at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. Now, he said, iPods, cellphones and Xbox video-game systems have taken up that role. "It's a different paradigm, and as a marketer you have to understand how to position yourself for that," he said. Marbury, who has been featured in Starbury print and Internet ads shot in Coney Island, is Steve & Barry's first celebrity endorser. He and the 145-store chain were brought together by the Agency Sports Management, which represents Marbury and does marketing work for the privately held retailer. Marbury was "intimately involved" in the Starbury collection's design, said Howard Schacter, chief partnership officer for Steve & Barry's. Marbury tested the shoes during his workouts, and the shoes were taken to off-season high school basketball camps and tournaments, where players were asked to try out and critique them. "For our first allotment of the Starbury One, we produced very optimistically a supply that we thought would take us about a month to sell through. Every pair virtually sold out in three days," Schacter said. "We knew the line was going to do well, especially given the fact that he's wearing the shoe on the court without any modification. We knew this would get some attention. But certainly nobody predicted that it would create the movement it has created."</div> Source
