Marin gaming company saves Kobe Bryant mural in LA
By Chuck Shilken
A mural of Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna will remain on a Los Angeles wall for at least another year with the help of a Marin County video game company.
The company, 2K Games in Novato, which features the late Lakers star on the cover of “NBA 2K24,” helped reach an agreement to save the mural.
The mural is on the wall of Hardcore Fitness at 400 W. Pico Blvd. in the downtown area. Cecilia Moran, the gym’s owner, said her landlord wanted the artwork removed by the end of the month so the space could be used for advertising. A Change.org petition to save the mural received more than 90,000 signatures.
Ronnie Singh, an executive at 2K, announced the company’s deal to help preserve the mural Monday on ESPN’s “NBA Today.” In an interview, Singh said his company made “a philanthropic donation” to help seal the one-year agreement.
“We saw the petition, we saw how important it was for everyone, we had a discussion internally with our amazing marketing team and we’re like, ‘We gotta do something about this,'” Singh said. “And then Vanessa [Bryant] posted about it. … I’m like, ‘Yes! That’s the confirmation we need that this mural’s super important.’ And so when she posted about it, we sprung into action. We had several conversations with the landlord, the tenant, a lot of people in the community and just figured it out.”
Messages left for Moran, mural artist Louie Palsino and Maroud Omrani — the agent for 400 W Pico LLC, which owns the building — were not immediately returned.
A rededication ceremony was scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday outside the gym, which is just blocks away from Crypto.com Arena. The event was set for hours before the Lakers home opener against the Phoenix Suns.
Singh said fans who attend the ceremony and visit the building will see the mural exactly the way Palsino painted it in the weeks following the Jan. 26, 2020 helicopter crash that killed Kobe and Gianna Bryant and seven others.
“We wanted to maintain the mural in its iconic form,” Singh said. “This is not about us getting a branding moment or anything like that, it was just important for us to do something for this mural that was about to be taken down. So no logo addition, nothing like that.”
The agreement runs through Oct. 31, 2024, Singh said.
“We’d probably consider it again in a year,” he said. “It’s possible but we’re hoping that some other brand is kind of inspired by it, this movement, and steps in next year. [One year is] what we could commit to with the landlord today, so what happens beyond that I can’t speak to. But I hope that it’s something that other brands kind of see and either want to participate in this one or participate in ones in their local communities, that’s kind of the goal.”
Distributed by Tribune News Service.