Welcome to this week’s edition of The Baseline!

This is your weekly blueprint for basketball culture: brand insights, marketing strategy, creator tools, and business resources.

MARKETING BLUEPRINT

Angel Reese is a multi-millionaire marketing genius.

Her recent Cash App partnership strategy and rollout promoting financial literacy has been incredible.

Here’s their 360 marketing blueprint:

🤑 They led with an experiential stunt and had this “Angel Machine” (big green ATM arcade machine) giving away free prizes to fans in Chicago.

💳 The stunt was followed up with a digital debit card customization experience that also included a special promo code to Angel Reese’s merch store.

🎨 Later this year, Cash App will renovate a basketball court near LSU and will host a community block party with Angel.

🎙️ Cash App will also be an official sponsor for this season of Angel’s new podcast: Unapologetically Angel.

This is A+ sports marketing work across the entire campaign:

✅ Experiential Moment and Content

✅ Brand Product and Partnership Integration

✅ Community Initiative and Event

✅ Short-Form and Long-Form Content and Distribution

FREE THROWS

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

🐝 Beehiiv - This is my third newsletter created with Beehiiv, the best email content platform that's intuitive, scalable, and perfect for monetization.

📲 TikTok’s Creator Search Insights - Use this powerful social media growth hack that's not being talked about enough. This tool provides comprehensive data to identify trending keywords and videos on TikTok.

🏆 Athletes.org - College student-athletes need mentors more than ever. Athletes.org, a non-profit players association, offers resources and mentors to over 3,300 athletes. I recently accepted their invitation to join as a mentor, focusing on creative, marketing, and entrepreneurial guidance.

FAST BREAK

Here’s what you missed this week:

🗽 KITH teamed up with the New York Knicks for their annual collaboration, and featured Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges on the campaign.

✍️ Kiyan Anthony, Melo’s son and top ranked guard in the class of 2025, signed with WME Sports for NIL representation.

⚡️ The projected #1 NBA Draft pick for 2025, Cooper Flagg, announced his endorsement deal with Gatorade.

📺 Anthony Edwards’ production company, Three-Fifths Media, signed a deal with Wheelhouse to produce unscripted TV.

🏀 Wilson released a collection of custom Caitlin Clark basketballs celebrating her journey into the WNBA.

🐂 Dylan Harper, five-star freshmen at Rutgers, became the very first male college basketball player to sign an NIL partnership with Red Bull.

🦖 Air Canada, the official airline sponsor of the Toronto Raptors when Vince Carter was playing, paid special tribute to his jersey retirement ceremony by painting one of their Airbus A220s.

📸 USC’s AP Preseason All-American, JuJu Watkins, graced the digital cover of Boardroom this month.

POST-GAME

That’s all for this week.

Hope you enjoyed reading The Baseline today.

If you found something interesting or useful, share today’s newsletter with a friend who works in basketball culture.

- Jeff Chen | 💡👨🏻‍💻 Marketer and Dadprenuer, Building Sports Startups 🏀