Carnival Corporation’s chief executive, Micky Arison, spent the morning of April 22 on Manhattan’s West Side, celebrating the first New York appearance of his company’s 150,000-ton Queen Mary 2, the largest ocean liner ever built.

Three months later a beaming Mr. Arison welcomed another gargantuan arrival.

Mr. Arison’s Miami Heat in July acquired the 7-foot-1-inch, 300-pluspound Shaquille O’Neal from the Los Angeles Lakers, rejuvenating interest in a National Basketball Association team that had a 42-40 record last season. The team has already added FedEx Corp. as an advertiser, and will eventually boost revenue from television, tickets, and sponsorships by “tens of millions” of dollars after trading for the eight-time All-Star, according to Scott Becher, president of Coral Gables, Fla.-based Sports & Sponsorships.

“The Queen Mary 2 really was a global phenomenon,” Mr. Arison, 55, said in a conference call with reporters. “Shaq is, too.”

The dismantling of the Lakers was the dominant off-season story in the NBA, which opens the regular season tonight. Mr. O’Neal’s Heat play their first game tomorrow night in New Jersey. The game will be shown on Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN as one of a maximum-allowable 33 national television appearances for Miami, which played before a national audience only once last season.

“That’s huge,” said Eric Wright, a vice president at Joyce Julius & Associates, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based firm that gauges the value of sports sponsorships. “The value of a Heat sponsorship went through the roof because of Shaq.”

Among the beneficiaries are Mr. Arison’s Carnival, the world’s biggest cruise line; AMR Corp.’s American Airlines; and Anheuser-Busch Cos., the world’s biggest brewer.

In all, the Heat added some 20 corporate sponsorship agreements, said Steve Weber, the team’s senior vice president of sales.

“In this market, it’s instant star power that people crave,” said the Heat’s chief marketing officer, Michael Mc-Cullough, in a telephone interview.

Heat officials wouldn’t speculate how much money the team would make because of Mr. O’Neal.

FedEx, the world’s biggest express delivery company, wanted to reach the 3.1 billion people globally who will see NBA games this year, the company’s vice president of Latin America and Caribbean marketing, Michael Murkowski, said in a telephone interview.

“You won’t find too many TVs not tuned into Shaq,” the 45-year-old said. He declined to give financial terms of the three-year contract.

Mr. O’Neal, 32, and Kobe Bryant led the Lakers to three straight championships in 2000-02 and a spot in last season’s Finals. Bickering between them led the team to split them up.

The frenzy in Miami over Mr. O’Neal is most evident at the box office.

The Heat opened the top level of the arena, expanding capacity by 3,100 seats to 19,600 for each of the team’s 41 regular-season games. The upper tier was open once last season, when Cleve land and Rookie of the Year LeBron James visited.

The Heat averaged 15,239 fans a year ago, the sixth-worst mark in the NBA. The extra seats will provide the Heat with “millions” in added revenue this season, said Mr. Becher of Sports & Sponsorships.

“It’s all due to Shaq,” Mr. Becher said in a telephone interview. “The Heat brand, nationally, has never been as high-profile.”

Fans are also showing their allegiance on their cars. Motorists in Florida can select team-identified license plates. Since Mr. O’Neal arrived, the state’s Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles sold out of Heat plates, said a department spokesman, Robert Sanchez. The state has gotten 5,114 purchases or renewals, ahead of last year’s pace when it sold 5,647.

BankUnited Financial Corp., which operates 41 branches in Florida, has been a Heat sponsor since 2002, or, as the executive vice president for marketing, Carlos Fernandez-Guzman, calls it, “B.S.” – Before Shaq.

The Coral Gables, Fla.-based company paid more than $500,000 over eight years for in-arena advertising as well as commercial time on television and radio in an effort to boost brand awareness. Mr. O’Neal’s arrival is a bonus, Mr. Fernandez-Guzman said.

“I’d be very surprised if our investment in the Heat doesn’t bump up more than 30%,” the 48-year-old said. “We were there during the lean years and now we see a payback.”

The Heat will reap a financial reward, too.

Should Mr. O’Neal catapult Miami into the upper echelon of the league, the team would get its windfall of ticket, luxury suite, and sponsorship revenue in the next two seasons, Mr. Becher said. That’s for a franchise that in 2001 muted the color of courtside seats so it wasn’t as obvious to television viewers that so many were empty, Mr. Becher said.

Mr. O’Neal, the NBA’s 2000 Most Valuable Player, has averaged 27.1 points, 12.1 rebounds, and 2.6 blocked shots in his 12 seasons with Orlando and the Lakers. When the NBA asked its general managers which team made the best off-season moves, a league-high 38% mentioned Miami.

While Mr. O’Neal probably will have an immediate impact on the court, the greatest gains in the sales office might not be until next season and beyond, Mr. Arison said. The Heat completed most of this season’s sponsorship agreements before sending Lamar Odom, Brian Grant, Caron Butler, and a no. 1 pick to the Lakers for Mr. O’Neal.

Price increases for courtside signs and sponsorships to reflect the added value of Mr. O’Neal won’t come until next season.

That’s fine with Mr. Arison, who ranks 32nd on Forbes magazine’s list of the richest Americans with a net worth of $5.3 billion. Mr. Arison said his goal is for the money-losing team to break even and win the championship.

“This bodes well both on the revenue side and the basketball side hopefully for many years to come,” Mr. Arison said. “I’m grinning from ear to ear.”

Just like on the pier in New York.