Agents Are Failing Basketball Athletes

You’re So Funny

Start with “You’re so funny” then share a moment from your time as an athlete that was tough or awkward but made you who you are today—whether it was a struggle, failure, or just a funny experience. The idea is that these moments shape you, and that's why you’ve got the humor or personality you do.

Why it works:

• It mixes vulnerability with humor, making it raw and authentic.

• Simple text + image makes it super relatable and attention-grabbing.

How to use it:

• Share a personal “trauma dump” from your sports journey, showing how it shaped you.

• Keep the text quick and impactful to land the punch.

• Use the sound attached to the trend - linked below.

In our last Pitch $chool segment, we talked about brand loyalty—connecting with brands by showing genuine appreciation for their work. But here’s the next layer: Point of Contact Loyalty.

In this industry, people switch jobs all the time. If you’ve got a solid relationship with someone, chances are they’ll hit you up with new opportunities when they move on.

Here’s The Deal

Relationships matter more than logos. Supporting people, not just the brand they represent, keeps you top of mind when they’re in a position to make things happen.

It’s not complicated. Celebrate their wins. Stay consistent. Check in once in a while. Most people treat relationships transactionally, but when you genuinely care, you’ll stand out. And when people move, they take your connection with them.

Hygiene just makes sense for athletes. They’re busy, disciplined, and it’s easy to make it part of their routine.

Here’s How We’d Approach It

Mornings Suck. Keep It Simple.
Early practices are rough. Show an athlete making self-care part of their morning routine. It’s quick, easy, and fits right into their busy schedule.

Self-Care is Squad Deep
Create UGC content where an athlete films their teammates during downtime on a regular day. They casually scan the room, and you see everyone rocking their Starface patch. No big setups. The product fits right in. Just something that feels real and easy.

Exploring the Exclusivity Trap

For years, high school basketball players dreamed of being able to one day sign with an agent. Now that it’s a reality, they need to come to the realization that these agents WORK for them. It’s time to flip the script.

With all the money flowing into AAU and lucrative shoe deals being offered to “sure-thing” teenage superstars, high school basketball players are more of a target for opportunistic agents.

15 year old basketball players are being held hostage by agencies with big bankrolls.

They’re locking themselves into exclusive deals with NIL agencies at an early age. On paper, it sounds like a win: you’ve got a team backing you, promising to bring in deals. But there’s a darker side to it.

Agents don’t like to talk about the exclusive deals they’re signing kids into because the reality is that this borderline predatory model is not built for athletes to succeed.

Here’s the hard truth about what’s broken.

Basketball is Different From Every Other Sport

It’s a sport with huge contracts, with the average salary being almost 3x the next closest among the Big 4 in the US.

• MLS: $650K

• NFL: $3.2M

• MLB: $4.5M

• NBA: $11.2M

Basketball players are also more likely to sign lucrative marketing contracts than other sports as well. Being able to see their face while they’re playing on national TV helps a ton (sorry football players).

You have the signature shoe deals for players like Anthony Edwards and Jayson Tatum, bringing in upwards of $20M/year, but even players without signature shoe deals are still making between $50k-$4M/year. That’s a nice chunk of change for any agent who can shake the right hands.

It’s also much easier to predict the success of a basketball player at a young age than any other sport.

Look at the ESPN 2020 high school boy’s rankings. Not only did most of those 5-stars make it to the league, they made it beyond the league with marketing deals and sponsorships that most athletes in other sports simply can’t touch. Specifically, the shoe deal.

And then there’s AAU. High school hoopers spend as much time with their AAU coaches as they do their high school coaches, but many of these AAU coaches serve as “runners” to agents—getting paid to deliver their players to agents.

Ask the players if they know they’re being pawned around to the highest bidders.

Agents Playing the Role of Marketers

Agents for basketball players often insist on being the contract agent and marketing rep—more so than any other sport. It's a growing trend in football to have a separate marketing rep than your agent. But in basketball, the big agencies almost always negotiate the contracts and serve as the marketing rep.

It makes sense why the agents also want the marketing contracts. 15-20% from a marketing contract here and 15-20% from a shoe deal there can turn into some serious change. But most agents simply aren’t marketers.

Agents (especially at the big agencies) are not incentivized to focus on marketing. It takes time and resources. They’re not built to grow brands. They don’t have marketing plans and they aren’t helping with social media strategies, creating edits or helping them grow on TikTok. They’re not even proactively reaching out to brands. The main value they provide is the clout from the company name on their business card.

The Fallacy of Big Agencies

Young star athletes might be #1 in their town or state, but when they sign with a super agent, their star power often gets diminished. With 25-50 other players, that agent is prioritizing whoever’s easiest to sell rather than helping develop those with the most potential. 

When a brand reaches out to a big agency to work with one of their athletes, as a player you have to ask yourself, where do you stand on this list? How many no’s until you get your opportunity?

Big agencies dominate basketball, but this isn’t the same landscape as 10 years ago. No doubt they’re great at overseeing pro contracts, and they have connections that can open doors. But they shouldn’t have a monopoly on any players’ deals.

Before social media, your marketing value was dependent on how you played. That has changed. Don’t get me wrong, being a great player definitely helps get you marketing deals, but you can build a brand and find deals that are unique to the type of person you are and the value you (or your choice of facial hair) can offer.

A good marketing agency can find what makes them special, grow the athlete’s brand, and find partnerships that align with them.

Athletes Hold the Power, Not the Agents

The future of athlete contracts might actually be found by looking at the past.

Back in ‘99, Ray Allen hired Johnnie Cochran on an hourly rate to negotiate his new $80M contract, rather than ponying up the 5-10% he would’ve owed to an agent. The lesson? Agents are not gatekeepers to a hooper’s success.

Exclusivity rarely benefits the athlete. Having multiple people with their own relationships bringing you deals can never be a bad thing. Having them non-exclusive means they actually need to compete for you. The one who will be best for you will want to earn your trust. Brands care about the athlete’s marketability, not who represents them.

There are more brands and more opportunities than ever, but not every company has athlete deals top of mind. This is where strategic and targeted outreach is incredibly important. Finding a specialized marketing partner (or two) who knows how to send outbound messages and connect with brands will go much further than being exclusive to one big name agent.

High school basketball players are more visible than almost every other sport. But they’re the ones with the talent, the story, and the audience that brands want to connect with.

As NIL continues to become more sophisticated, high school and college basketball players need a team around them—an agent AND a marketing rep. The players need to realize that they have the leverage. If an agent is confident in what they’re doing, exclusivity shouldn’t matter. Make them prove their worth.