For the first time, on Nov. 1 ESPN's SportsCenter was sponsored by a sole advertiser - Nike, which promoted the Nike Air Zoom LeBron IV.

The SportsCenter sponsorship is part of a mult-imedia campaign to promote the new shoes, using the fictional family The LeBrons, all the members of which are played by the basketball star, the New York Times reports. Some 400,000 DVD will be distributed highlighting the campaign and its creation, as well as saturation advertising on mtv.com and espn.com and a pop-up retail storefront in Manhattan.

The SportsCenter ad buy for Nike also came with a pseudo product-placement, as ESPN not only aired segments on LeBron James during SportsCenter but also invited viewers to go to ESPN.com to answer a poll question about the superstar. During the show, several spots for the campaign featuring The LeBrons family aired, including "directors commentary" versions of spots aired earlier in the show.

Nike's campaign is the latest in a move by advertisers to reach customers via multiple media formats simultaneously. "Our marketing model is evolving pretty quickly," says Adam Roth, Nike's director for U.S. advertising. "It's fair to say we've gone deeper into pushing content into the world consumers are already living in. We're not afraid to try new things."