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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Baseline!

Let’s jump right into your weekly blueprint for basketball culture…

As usual, we’re breaking down the blueprint for basketball culture: brand insights, marketing strategy, creator tools, and business resources.

Let’s dive right into it…

MARKETING BLUEPRINT

March Madness may be over, but the House v. NCAA settlement could mark one of the most pivotal moments in college sports history.

As the players association for college athletes, Athletes.org (AO) is leading the charge in this movement—and I’ve partnered with them to help award $10,000 to the winner of their Creator Tourney.

This initiative is all about amplifying the voices of college athletes as creators while supporting AO’s mission: to educate, organize, and represent their athlete members by advocating for their collegiate experience.

Over the past 28 days, I’ve passed 1.5 MILLION views across social—and I worked with AO to build a Creator Blueprint designed to help these athletes (and you) win on social with short-form video:

1. Start with a simple format and platform you’re most comfortable using.

2. Craft a STORY in every post (make people care!)

3. Master all three hooks: Visual, Audio and Text.

4. Don’t forget the fundamentals: clean audio, add captions, edit out anything irrelevant.

5. Document your entire process: hooks, ideas, scripts, and visual concepts.

6. Refine, improve and repeat!

With $10,000 on the line, I’m excited to see which finalist wins the bracket—and more importantly, how this movement continues to shape the future of college sports.

FREE THROWS

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

💡 Solo Founder Inspiration - sometimes the best inspiration comes from outside your industry. Here are 11 stories of indie hackers and solo founders who have found success (>$1M ARR) by creating products that solved their own problems.

🖼️ Envato - the perfect tool when you need stock imagery and videos that don’t look like stock imagery and videos.

📈 YouTube Shorts Views - read this comprehensive breakdown on how YouTube is changing the way it calculates views for Shorts to align more closely with other platforms and initiate its influencer marketing program.

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FAST BREAK

Here’s what you missed this week:

👑 LeBron James will become the first male athlete to have his own Barbie doll, making him the brand’s first-ever "Kenbassador." The signature LeBron Barbie "Kenbassador" doll will be available starting April 14th.

🐊 Jordan Brand flexxed their championship family ahead of the Men’s Basketball National Championship game, ensuring a championship win within the family as the brand sponsors both Florida and Houston.

🐕 Nike Basketball released their “Top Dogs” celebration content immediately after UConn won the Women’s Basketball National Championship.

👙 Hailey Van Lith continues her successful year as she makes her debut with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit as the April SI Swimsuit Digital Cover Star.

🚙 Devin Booker announced a collaboration between his Nike Book1 sneakers and Chevrolet, connecting his love of classic cars to his signature footwear.

🎙️ Austin Rivers has launched a new show, "Eye For The Game," on YouTube. It dives deep into the journeys of basketball stars from different eras, blending film breakdowns, personal stories, and behind-the-scenes moments that fans rarely get to hear.

🐜 Steve Stoute took to Instagram to call out adidas Basketball, Anthony Edwards, and their creative agency for "stealing" his crime scene concept that he produced for Reebok in 2003. What are your thoughts on this? Reply and let me know!

It’s so good brands can’t stop!

minisocial is a UGC platform that is so confident in what they offer they don't force any longterm commitments it's just so good brands can’t seem to stop coming back for more! 💁‍♀️

See why here

POST-GAME

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

And if you enjoyed reading today’s newsletter, please share it with one friend.

- Jeff Chen | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻