Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors won the rubber match against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers by winning last month’s NBA Finals and taking home two titles in three consecutive head-to-head meetings.
Off the court, Curry’s influence is gaining, too. A recent report by MVPindex named Curry the top social influencer among NBA players, supplanting James at No. 1. Of particular note: the analysis cited Curry’s posts related to CoachUp, an app in which amateurs can find private coaches for additional instructions and workouts. Curry invested in Coach Up back in 2015, explaining how important coaching tutors had been to his own career, and he’s using his 17 million Instagram followers to promote the startup.
Last winter, Curry filmed an ad for CoachUp in which he’s badgered by random passersby in the gym shouting tips about shooting technique, with the narrator intoning, “Everyone thinks they’re a coach.”
This push by Curry generated $4.1 million in social value for the app, according to MVPindex. Skills coaches acting as personal gurus have proliferated the professional ranks, offering instruction beyond the realm of the team, and such tutoring appears to be growing at the amateur level as well. Curry was said to have created more value for charity than any athlete — $2.3 million for Nothing But Nets, a malaria-fighting charity — by donating three nets for every three-pointer last season.
It’s no surprise that Curry would have social savvy, as he and Warriors teammate Andre Iguodala announced recently that they will host The Players Technology Summit presented by Bloomberg next month in San Francisco. The event, open to athletes of all sports, will invite tech leaders to offer advice about wielding the athletes’ platform and to open doors for possible collaboration.
