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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 BLUEPRINT

Internet trolls love to make fun of these celebrities connected to sports teams but the smartest brands are turning these inside jokes into winning campaign insights.

Sports fans believe certain celebrities bring bad luck to teams and athletes.

Just look at Drake (every team he publicly bets on), Justin Bieber (Toronto Maple Leafs) and every celebrity bandwagon LA Rams fan.

But there’s no bigger internet curse than the famous Kardashian Kurse.

The Kardashian hit list of athletes have all become part of the running joke, which is how Kendall Jenner has been actually benefiting from these athlete performance drop-offs.

This is exactly what Fanatics Sportsbook highlighted in their newest campaign.

Kendall Jenner showed how she's been winning despite her ex-boyfriend’s failures (i.e. Devin Booker, Ben Simmons, Blake Griffin, Jordan Clarkson, etc).

So instead of your typical ad read, Fanatics Sportsbook embraced this narrative, making it a masterclass in celebrity marketing.

This is another example showing that the brands that succeed online understand and immerse themselves in internet culture.

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FREE THROWS

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

🎬 Social Show Playbook - Deep dive into how brands can create winning social shows in 2026.

🔦 Creator Spotlight - Your resource platform and guide for growing and monetizing creator-first businesses through weekly newsletter content, creator case studies, interviews, and podcasts.

🤖 GPT Zero - Use this free AI detector when the copy appears too polished for a person to use naturally, as this tool can help you identify content written by ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI tools.

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POST-GAME

Thanks for reading—I’ll see you back here later this week!

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- Jeff Chen | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻