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- 🧡 NIL Blueprint: AJ Dybantsa
🧡 NIL Blueprint: AJ Dybantsa
Building a multi-platform content ecosystem as a college freshmen
Jeff Chen
November 19, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
In partnership with
Welcome to The Baseline!
Every Wednesday at 9:36 AM EST, I break down the blueprint for basketball culture and share the newest creator tools and resources.
Before we jump right into it, quick question for you:
Would an IMDB-style database of sports marketing campaigns be useful to you?A searchable hub that lets you discover the most creative, unique, and disruptive brand moments in sports — featuring campaigns, creator collabs, events, NIL deals, and more. |
If you said 👍 Yes, hit reply and let me know — what’s one thing you’d want this platform to include?
NIL BLUEPRINT
This future #1 pick might be the most NBA ready prospect since LeBron but it’s his marketing blueprint that’s setting a new standard for how athletes build brands in the NIL era.
Most college freshmen wait until they make the league to think about a marketing system but AJ Dybantsa is already building his brand’s empire to not limit his commercial potential.
With over 1 million total followers, he’s not just posting highlights but he’s building a multi-platform ecosystem where every channel has its own purpose:
On YouTube — it’s travel vlogs, fan on the street interviews, and he shows his life beyond basketball.
On TikTok — it’s trending challenges and dances.
On Instagram — it’s podcast appearances, brand partnership content, and basketball moments that blend culture with performance.
He even uses a text messaging service to connect directly with fans, building an audience database that most pro’s don’t even have.
He has also already partnered with Fanatics, Nike, and Red Bull, and has one of college basketball’s highest NIL valuations ($4.4 million 👀).
With his dad leading the charge and Shaq’s agent advising the family, AJ Dybantsa is not waiting to make the NBA to build his brand.
He’s proving the future of athlete marketing starts before the spotlight arrives and he’s setting up his success with one post, one platform, and one fan text message at a time.
Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays
Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.
Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.
FREE THROWS
Sharing the tools and resources that I’m using this week:
đź“ą Video Database - A curated library created by the team at Cut30, featuring the best short-form videos to inspire and reference for your next short-form video.
🪄 Magic Path - Design faster and smarter with this AI-powered design tool that lets users generate, edit and prototype user interfaces from text prompts (think ChatGPT meets Figma).
📸 Squoosh - Shrink your image file sizes while maintaining high quality to help with faster loading times.
Make Every Platform Work for Your Ads
Marketers waste millions on bad creatives.
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POST-GAME
Thanks for reading—I’ll see you back here later this week!
And if you enjoyed reading today’s newsletter, please share it with one friend.
- Jeff Chen | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻
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