Non-tennis sports stars turning up to watch Roger Federer at Grand Slams is not new. Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar is a regular at Wimbledon and so are others. Last week, during the US Open, basketball great Michael Jordan showed up to watch Federer but it was not just to see the Swiss star play.

According to a report in "The Wall Street Journal", American legend Jordan's appearance (in Federer's courtside box) at Flushing Meadows during Federer's first round match (August 26) against Australian Marinko Matosevic was sportswear giant Nike's "carefully arranged marketing grand slam". Both endorse Nike. The duo had dinner together the previous night of the match. Federer had posted a selfie too.

MJ #selfie #HisAirness pic.twitter.com/Bv4HJVecqa

— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) August 26, 2014

"The point of Mr. Jordan's presence at the match, coordinated by Nike executives, was to promote a new limited edition of Mr. Federer's line of tennis shoes. The white and cement-patterned NikeCourt Zoom Vapor AJ3's feature Air Jordan styling and logos. Mr. Federer wore them in Tuesday's match, and they went on sale Wednesday," the report said.

"I know nothing about tennis," Jordan, 51, said in an interview with "ESPN".

Federer, 33, eased past his Australian opponent and with that Nike too won with their latest marketing ploy of having two legends at the same place.

"ESPN" too joined in on talking about Nike shoes. "As Mr. Federer easily disposed of unranked Australian opponent Marinko Matosevic, the shoes became a topic of conversation, with ESPN devoting more than two minutes of airtime to talk about them with both the tennis star and the basketball legend.

"How sweet is it to have those shoes?" an ESPN analyst asked Mr. Federer in an interview following his victory. "I have old Chuck Taylors, but you've got sweet MJs," the report added.

"Nike didn't respond to multiple requests for comment," the report said further.

Next time, when a sports star appears to watch, fans would wonder is it to cheer or part of marketing strategy by some company.

OneIndia News