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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Baseline!

Every Wednesday at 9:36 AM EST, I break down the blueprint for basketball culture, covering industry insights, marketing strategies, and creator tools and resources.

Let’s get started…

MARKETING LESSON

During the first few days of the Big 12 Men’s Basketball Tournament, the biggest storyline wasn’t a game or a player.

It was the full glass LED court.

This innovative floor essentially turned the entire playing surface into a giant digital screen capable of displaying graphics, animations, videos and sponsor integrations throughout the tournament.

There was even a perfectly aligned partnership with Windex to clean the court — genuinely great brand alignment on paper.

Most sports marketers dream of creative innovation like this, but the idea nearly shattered the entire moment.

During the first few games, the glass court became dangerously slippery, leading to player injuries, outrage from coaches, and the Big 12 eventually scrapping the whole thing mid-tournament for a traditional wooden floor.

Here's the marketing lesson hiding inside this chaos.

Glass LED courts aren't a new concept.

The NBA, Nike and other brands have used them before.

But they've always been deployed for the right occasion like brand activations, exhibition games, and consumer marketing moments where the performance stakes are low.

The Big 12 took an innovation built for the spotlight and dropped it into a high-stakes conference tournament just days before March Madness.

Innovation is valuable, but the product is still the sport itself.

The best sports marketing amplifies the product. It never competes with it.

In a world obsessed with virality, stunts, and more content, it's easy to forget that the actual sport is always the main event and the greatest marketing asset in the room.

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Sharing the tools and resources that I’m using this week:

📲 Socialpruf - Real-time social intelligence that lets you track, benchmark and report on any social media account in the world.

💻 Slams Laptop Shut - Monthly newsletter written by Nathan Jun Poekert about marketing, culture, and social media trends.

✍️ AutoDraw - AI-powered drawing tool by Google Creative Lab that helps you quickly create icons and illustrations for decks and social media assets by suggesting what you’re trying to draw after you sketch on the machine learning canvas.

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POST-GAME

Thanks for reading! Here are a few ways we can stay connected:

🤝 Partner With Me: I work with brands, athletes and creators across their brand strategy, digital media, creator programs, partnerships, and marketing growth. Interested in working together? Get in touch here.

📊 Be First: I’m building Future Blueprint Sports — the definitive discovery and intelligence platform for sports marketing and creator culture. Get early access today.

👋 Stay Connected: Enjoyed this newsletter? Share it with a friend or colleague. Also follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for more sports marketing and creator insights.

Thanks and see you later this week!

- Jeff Chen | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻