Beach

While almost everyone in March Madness wants to be this year&rsquo;s version of reigning national champion Kansas, almost anyone playing over the next three weeks would also love to be this year&rsquo;s version of Doug Edert.
If that name doesn&rsquo;t ring a bell, maybe Edert&rsquo;s wispy mustache will. Edert was the reserve guard from Saint Peter&rsquo;s who turned into a social media sensation after scoring 20 points in a first-round upset over Kentucky last March.
By the time he and the Peacocks made history by becoming the first 15 seed to advance to the Elite Eight, Edert&rsquo;s mustache had its own Twitter handle and Edert himself had deals hawking chicken wings and a few other products.
All of this was spurred by the confluence of social media&rsquo;s ever-growing imprint on society (and sports) combined with the new and loosely regulated world of NIL, the name, imagine and likeness deals that allow college athletes to cash in on paid endorsements.
Edert&rsquo;s success story is one of several examples of the ways social media has turbocharged March Madness, that one-of-a-kind American sporting event that had communal elements built in &mdash; think, the bracket and the office pool &mdash; long before the internet even existed.
The key for someone like Edert &mdash; and there will almost certainly be another &ldquo;someone like Edert&rdquo; once the shots start flying &mdash; was to move quickly.
&ldquo;My main focus was basketball, and obviously, I&rsquo;m trying to do whatever I can to help my team win games,&rdquo; Edert told The Associated Press. &ldquo;But at the same time, I&rsquo;m trying to capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.&rdquo;
Some things &mdash; namely, the emerging love affair with his jump shot, to say nothing of his &rsquo;70s-style &rsquo;stache &mdash; took on a life of their own, the way things often do on TikTok, Instagram and the other social media platforms that help drive the tournament&rsquo;s popularity. Others &mdash; namely, the hot wings deal and a few more sponsorships &mdash; came because he struck quickly at the urging of his friends and parents, who were watching this unheralded guard from a tiny school blow up in real time.
&ldquo;Nobody was pressuring me, saying, &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve gotta do this, or you&rsquo;ve gotta do that,&rsquo;&rdquo; Edert said. &ldquo;They were just behind me, and they were offering to help in any way they could.&rdquo;
Edert would not divulge the amount he has made from his sponsorships, which included a deal shooting celebrity video messages and another promoting a website that offers adult recreational sports leagues.
But, he said, it gave him a &ldquo;nice little start, for whatever happens after college.&rdquo; Certainly, it gave him more than someone like him might have gotten only a couple years ago. And it was not something anyone saw coming for a guard from a 3,400-student school in Jersey City, New Jersey.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always that chance that a star player, or an underrated player from a team that goes far, will capture the hearts of America, and where will they capture it? On social media,&rdquo; said Jeffrey Weiner, senior vice president for NIL marketing at GSE Worldwide. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be on TV, and then they&rsquo;ll go look for that person on social media. People are watching these games with their phones in their hands.&rdquo;
Edert said he rarely posted on social media, and had a following of about 1,500 on Instagram in early March of last year.
&ldquo;And after the Kentucky game, I look at my phone and it&rsquo;s 6,000 followers and it&rsquo;s going up,&rdquo; he said. It is now 149,000, barely a blip by hoop-star standards, but a 1,000 times more than he had a year ago.
Perhaps the single most impactful social media post to emerge in the NIL era came from the TikTok account of Oregon&rsquo;s Sedona Prince.
Her takedown of the NCAA for the sparse weight room facilities at the 2021 women&rsquo;s tournament shined a spotlight on the disparities between men&rsquo;s and women&rsquo;s college sports. That video currently has been viewed more than 12.3 million times.
In the month between February 2021 and the time Prince posted a month later, the hashtag &ldquo;NCAA&rdquo; spiked from 7 million to 490 million views on TikTok. The hashtag &ldquo;March Madness&rdquo; has gone from 957 million views in 2021 to 1.4 billion views this year on TikTok &mdash; and that 2023 figure was calculated before a single basket had been made in the actual tournament.
Prince&rsquo;s TikTok following now numbers 2.8 million. With the explosion in popularity came a deal with an energy drink that includes equity and cash in exchange for creating content on social media. Her current feed also includes sponsored content with Buick and Crocs, which means she now has a bank account to go with her unexpected fame.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve tried to optimize my NIL opportunities.,&rdquo; Prince said in an interview last year with Yahoo Finance. &ldquo;I take what I do off the court, which is TikTok and certain brand deals, but turn them into something I can use for the rest of my life., money that I can retire with, put my kids through college with.&rdquo;
The NIL platform Opendorse estimated that companies spent $917 million on college athlete deals in the first year they were approved. Most of those earnings were made via social media.
These days, many arrangements come on the front end through so-called collectives that are tied to schools, often sealed during the recruiting process. Edert, however, was making no such money when he signed to play for Shaheen Holloway at Saint Peter&rsquo;s.
&ldquo;At the beginning of the year, when they explained to students that you can start your own business or have your own brand, I&rsquo;m thinking, &lsquo;This doesn&rsquo;t really apply to me,&rsquo;&rdquo; Edert said of the preseason athletic department presentations he sat through.
Now, it does, and Edert&rsquo;s star turn at March Madness last year also played a roundabout role in his second run through the recruiting process. When Holloway left Saint Peter&rsquo;s for a job at his alma mater, Seton Hall, several Peacocks, including Edert, used social media to let the world know they were entering the transfer portal.
&ldquo;I announced early in the morning, and by 7:30 or 8, my phone started blowing up,&rdquo; Edert said.
Most of those calls and messages were from coaches at Edert&rsquo;s new school, Bryant University, where they knew a lot more about the guard out of Nutley, New Jersey than they might have the year before. Those coaches weren&rsquo;t the only ones.
&ldquo;Even yesterday, I was signing autographs and taking some pictures with kids in middle school and high school,&rdquo; Edert said. &ldquo;They said &rsquo;We love you, Doug.&rdquo; And I felt great. I&rsquo;m just doing what I love to do. There&rsquo;s a lot of love and support from a lot of people, and it really means a lot.&rdquo;

Doug Edert’s success story is one of several examples of the ways social media has turbocharged March Madness.

Social media madness gives opportunities to Edert and others

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) &mdash; A federal judge in North Carolina has again ruled in favor of NBA All-Star Zion Williamson, this time in connection with a lawsuit he filed against a marketing agent two years ago in an attempt to break a contract.
U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Biggs denied a number of motions filed by Prime Sports Marketing and Gina Ford, which entered an agreement to represent Williamson when he was at Duke. The defendants were seeking to recover payment for the work they did for him, according to a copy of the ruling.
Biggs denied multiple motions by the defendants for summary judgment and to stay proceedings in the case regarding the contract. The court ruled previously that because neither the company nor the agent complied with North Carolina law, their agreement was void and unenforceable.
In January 2021, Biggs ruled in favor of Williamson, saying Ford&rsquo;s contract with Williamson was void because Ford was not a licensed agent in the state at the time she met with Williamson. The judge also ruled the contract did not comply with key requirements outlined by the state&rsquo;s sports agent law, the Uniform Athlete Agents Act.
The act requires that the contract include warnings explaining how hiring agents causes athletes to forfeit their amateur status. It also requires such contracts to include a disclaimer giving athletes 14 days to cancel.
Williamson, who was draft No. 1 overall by the New Orleans Pelicans in 2019, filed the federal lawsuit in North Carolina that June to terminate a five-year contract with Ford&rsquo;s agency after moving to Creative Artists Agency LLC.
Attorneys for Ford and Prime Sports had alleged that North Carolina&rsquo;s athlete agent law should not apply to Williamson because he and his family had accepted improper financial benefits while he was still enrolled at Duke. Ford&rsquo;s attorney&rsquo;s filed an affidavit alleging a $400,000 payment was made to Williamson&rsquo;s family before the he began his only season with the Blue Devils.
Williamson lawyer Jeffrey S. Klein asked the court to disregard the affidavit, arguing that the allegations were false and that supporting documents were fraudulent. He noted the facts in the case remained that Williamson completed his lone season at Duke in good standing and had never been ruled ineligible by the NCAA.
The judge agreed, noting that there was no legal basis for the courts to decide whether Williamson had violated NCAA rules.
The ruling was issued on July 15.

A federal judge ruled in favor of Zion Williamson in connection with a lawsuit he filed against a marketing agent two years ago.

Federal judge again rules in favor of Zion Williamson in lawsuit

HEIR Launches the First Athlete Collection of 4,200 NFTs with Lonzo Ball and &nbsp;Don C on Solana-Based NFT Platform Magic Eden.
Los Angeles, CA &mdash; HEIR, the digital platform building Web23 by celebrating the greatest athlete legacies of all time and transforming Web2 sports fans to Web3 owners, has announced its first athlete membership NFT with Chicago Bulls star and HEIR investor Lonzo Ball in collaboration with legendary streetwear designer Don C. Ball&rsquo;s NFT collection marks the first official athlete launch on HEIR, built for GenZ and millennial fans to become owners on the blockchain as they experience priceless athlete engagement moments and co create the future of sports culture.
Chicago native Don C serves as Creative Director for the fully generative art collection of 4,200 NFTs. Owners of Ball&rsquo;s membership NFT will own the digital art and unlock insider&rsquo;s access and utility as they will engage with the athletes and co-create content, products and experiences while the athletes build their legacies in real time.
&ldquo;HEIR is evolving and elevating the fan experience by offering an innovative athlete engagement platform through a unique membership model. The platform provides an entirely new way for fans across the world to become owners in Web3 as they are able to co-create new content, products and experiences with athletes,&rdquo; says Ball. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited to partner with HEIR as we work together to digitize the transition from fans to owners, empower first-person athlete storytelling, and provide athletes with a digital platform to build and monetize their brands on the blockchain. I had so much fun creating this first NFT collection with Don C and can&rsquo;t wait for fans to experience these priceless moments of utility with me.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Lonzo&rsquo;s membership NFT is all about paying homage to our shared love of basketball, our connection to the Windy City and approach for constant innovation,&rdquo; says Don C. &ldquo;Our goal is to reach the next generation of fans as HEIR introduces them into Web3, so we wanted to make something that would resonate and be truly unique. Working with HEIR and Lonzo while celebrating the city of Chicago with this NFT collection has been a really awesome experience.&rdquo;
Ball&rsquo;s Membership NFT collection will launch on June 7 through a mint on Magic Eden&rsquo;s Launchpad, the leading NFT launch service provided by Solana&rsquo;s #1 NFT marketplace. Owners will receive a legendary piece of the 4,200 supply collection.
&ldquo;HEIR is giving athletes an unprecedented opportunity to create, scale and monetize their brands in Web3,&rdquo; says HEIR co-founder Jeffrey Jordan. &ldquo;As an early HEIR investor and one of the most compelling personalities in basketball, Lonzo is the perfect partner to headline our first Athlete Membership NFT launch. Together, we will create priceless experiences for our HEIR family as we transform sports fans to owners on the blockchain. On HEIR, NFT owners are considered more than just community members as we value them as a part of our family. We&rsquo;re proud to be the leading digital platform that onboards new users into the virtual era of Web3.&rdquo;
ABOUT HEIR: 
HEIR is a digital platform celebrating the greatest athlete legacies of all time. The platform&rsquo;s purpose is rooted in HEIR&rsquo;s mission of Web23 &ndash; jumping the Web2 to Web3 gap by transforming sports fans to owners. HEIR family members experience priceless athlete engagement moments as they co-create the future of sports culture. Join our family on Discord, Twitter and Instagram.
ABOUT MAGIC EDEN: 
Magic Eden is the leading NFT marketplace on Solana, representing over 90% volume for all NFTs on chain. Magic Eden is a community-focused, NFT-based web3 ecosystem built on Solana with the mission of defining the future of NFTs. Led by former crypto, tech and hospitality leaders, Magic Eden provides a cutting edge minting service called Launchpad and the most liquid secondary marketplace on Solana. For more information, please visit www.magiceden.io

Lonzo Ball’s Membership NFT collection launches today through a mint on Magic Eden’s Launchpad.