Social media madness gives opportunities to Edert and others
While almost everyone in March Madness wants to be this year’s version of reigning national champion Kansas, almost anyone playing over the next three weeks would also love to be this year’s version of Doug Edert.
If that name doesn’t ring a bell, maybe Edert’s wispy mustache will. Edert was the reserve guard from Saint Peter’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’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’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’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 — think, the bracket and the office pool — long before the internet even existed.
The key for someone like Edert — and there will almost certainly be another “someone like Edert” once the shots start flying — was to move quickly.
“My main focus was basketball, and obviously, I’m trying to do whatever I can to help my team win games,” Edert told The Associated Press. “But at the same time, I’m trying to capitalize on a once-in-alifetime opportunity.”
Some things — namely, the emerging love affair with his jump shot, to say nothing of his ’70s-style ‘stache — 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’s popularity. Others — namely, the hot wings deal and a few more sponsorships — 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.
“Nobody was pressuring me, saying, ‘You’ve gotta do this, or you’ve gotta do that,’” Edert said. “They were just behind me, and they were offering to help in any way they could.”
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 “nice little start, for whatever happens after college.” 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.
“There’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,” said Jeffrey Weiner senior vice president for NIL marketing at GSE Worldwide. “It’ll be on TV, and then they’ll go look for that person on social media. People are watching these games with their phones in their hands.”
Edert said he rarely posted on social media, and had a following of about 1,500 on Instagram in early March of last year.
“And after the Kentucky game I look at my phone and it’s 6,000 followers and it’s going up,” he said It is now 149,000.