Basketball is the "second most popular sport on Instagram" with over 100 million followers, and a generation of young athletes will "step onto their high school courts in a few weeks with giant Instagram followings meant to flag them as stars to watch," according to Amanda Christovich of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. To be a "youth-basketball sensation on Instagram requires personality; social media savvy; and, often, a boost from basketball media outlets such as SLAM and Overtime, which hunt for young players with flashy highlights to post on their feeds." The "superstars of youth basketball Instagram include players like Mikey Williams, who at age 15 has 857,000 Instagram followers." Williams on his Instagram feed "punctuates mixtapes with still images of himself posing in shoes that would look at home on elite sneaker blogs." And he "not only follows, but also engages with other players both on Instagram and in real life." Williams has "engaged with basketball publications like Overtime and SLAM, posting pictures of himself in shirts for both." The outlets can "help create stars in this universe," as they "comb through AAU tournaments and high school games, crowding sidelines." Overtime, a "relatively new brand created specifically to cover the youth sports space, has over 1.9 million followers on its main Instagram account and boasts investors" like Kevin Durant and NBA Commissioner Emeritus David Stern. Meanwhile, Slam "created a high school Instagram feed" in the fall of '17 that now has "about 656,000 followers" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/27).
