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Bob Sapp merchandise is a hot seller in Japan

The Big Time
	Pulling no punches

Posted Monday, June 2, 2003; 21:00 HKT
Few superstars are bigger in Japan than mountainous fighter Bob Sapp, and we're not talking about quadriceps. In appearance fees, product endorsements and licensing deals, Sapp is sumo-size

  MERCHANDISE
Sapp's face can be seen everywhere, from mouse pads, to trading cards to coffee mugs. You can also carry him (tote bags), wear him (T shirts) and digest him (apple crunch cakes). Royalties: he pockets 5-10% of the retail price of every item sold

  TELEVISION
Sapp speaks no Japanese, but he has more than 200 television appearances under his belt, ranging from talk shows to dramas. On one variety program, Chikara Awasete Go Go Go!, Sapp clowned regularly as a character named Bob Hage who dressed in a grass skirt and berated people on the street for behaving rudely. Fee: $10,000-$30,000 per spot n ENDORSEMENTS He is the ambassador for Northwest Airlines' Seattle to Tokyo route, and even though he was a washout as a professional football player in the U.S., the National Football League has named him its Japan spokesman

  ADVERTISEMENTS
Sapp's wide appeal makes him a popular pitchman for everything from canned coffee to instant noodles, pinball machines to fabric softener. Fee: $300,000-$500,000 per commercial

  MUSIC
Sapp's rap CD, Sapp Time, debuted at No. 28 on the Oricon charts (Japan's equivalent of Billboard) a week after it was released on March 5 and sold 100,000 copies by mid-April. A companion DVD, on the making of the album, went on sale May 21

Source: TIME Research

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