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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Baseline!

Every Wednesday morning, I break down the blueprint for basketball culture, covering industry insights, marketing strategies, and creator tools and resources.

Let’s get started…

MARKETING BLUEPRINT

One of the global faces of the NBA just made one of the biggest bets of his career, but it has nothing to do with basketball.

Most superstar athletes build their off-court empires through endorsement deals.

They sign with companies like Jordan Brand and Gatorade, allowing those companies to license the athletes' IP.

However, Luka Dončić is adding something unique to the standard athlete marketing playbook.

He’s building 77X, his direct-to-fan platform created entirely around his own universe.

This includes an ecosystem of IP he fully controls, such as the mascot Lil Luka and immersive experiences like the All-Star Weekend Heartbreak Factory.

77X will also expand into toys, collectibles, shows, games, and animated content.

While brand partnerships generate income, ownership creates leverage, meaning you're no longer dependent on contract expiration dates, especially when you control the platform, the audience, and the characters inside your own world.

In an era where players are operating like founders, Luka is building something he can own forever, which is an entire infrastructure around his personal brand that can extend far beyond his playing career.

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FREE THROWS

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

🤝 Claude Cowork - Automate your daily workflow with this AI agent that can create, organize, and edit your files, and even act as an autonomous assistant to help you tackle tedious tasks.

📊 Content Pillars - Oren John breaks down his social media content pillar system to help your brand win on social media.

📋 Outliner - Quickly document your company's processes by simply hitting record, allowing this tool to write the systems for you, enabling you to scale your operations.

How Jennifer Anniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Anniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more

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 | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻