What the Cooper Flagg economy could mean for men’s college basketball

The Duke freshman is the favorite to go No. 1 in the NBA draft in June. And with that, with it being years since a single men’s college basketball player has been so hyped, comes the idea that Flagg — Maine native, internet obsession, recipient of lucrative name, image and likeness (NIL) deals from New Balance and Gatorade — could help keep a whole sport from drifting into relative obscurity. “Before Victor Wembanyama was drafted, NBA fans would do anything to catch a glimpse of him: YouTube clips, social media, the fuzziest stream of European games,” said Neal Pilson, a sports television consultant and the former president of CBS Sports. “Now with Flagg, it’s the likely No. 1 pick playing for Duke, not just any major college, and he’s on ESPN all the time. That’s much more accessible. If the men’s game needed an answer to the Caitlin Clark boom, you can’t ask for better than that.” The question, then, is whether the men’s game did need that answer — whether popularity has to work like a seesaw here, with any gain for one side meaning an automatic loss for the other. When Flagg and then-No. 9 Duke beat No. 2 Auburn on ESPN in early December, the game averaged 1.34 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch. Eight days later, when the No. 2 Connecticut women faced No. 8 Notre Dame on ESPN, the game averaged around 850,000 viewers, according to Sports Media Watch, the highest figure of the season to date. That’s just one comparison of top-10 matchups spaced not so far apart, meaning any number of factors could have skewed the data. But it’s not like the women’s game exploded and major men’s basketball turned into professional bull riding. CBS still pays a lot of money — think billions — to air the men’s NCAA tournament each spring. Basketball, men’s or women’s, tends to have its moments once football season ends. That said, stars drive popularity beyond die-hard fans (or at the very least, the perception of popularity beyond die-hard fans). And even in its post-Clark era, there are inarguably more superstars in women’s college hoops — the type who show up on billboards, in commercials or in everyday dinner conversation. Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers is as famous as any college athlete. Southern California’s JuJu Watkins recently signed a multiyear extension with Nike, upping what she earns from a list of brand-name endorsement deals. To turn pro in the WNBA, women’s players are required to be 22 years old at any point of the draft year. In turn, college fans get to know them better, especially because there are far fewer transfers in women’s basketball. Female athletes also typically work harder to build their social media followings, which is the most reliable indicator of an athlete’s value in NIL brand deals. For all of those reasons, companies are more likely to feature women’s players in national campaigns. Flagg, by contrast, will almost certainly leap to the NBA after No. 4 Duke (13-2) finishes this season. So if he does help close a nebulous popularity gap, it would be on a compressed timeline. Good thing he was ready to excel right away, leading Duke in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. He is averaging 17.5 points and has yet to find his touch from deep. He turned 18 on Dec. 21. “For me, one of the biggest things was playing above my age really early,” Flagg said after that win over Auburn, during which he played 38 minutes and led Duke with 22 points. “I was getting those live game reps from a very young age. I remember when I was in second grade playing on a fifth-grade AAU team. I definitely wasn’t ready for it physically. But those kinds of things got me so ready for the next level.” When Duke hosts potential recruits, part of the visit is devoted to a presentation on content and social media reach. The Blue Devils have 2.1 million followers on X. That’s only for the men’s basketball program, not the whole athletic department, and is more than Alabama football (1.3 million) and many professional teams. Then add in Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and Duke men’s basketball can blast its athletes to more than 5 million fans across all platforms. “Once in a while, a kid will be like: ‘Well, what if I don’t want to?’” said Rachel Baker, who helps Duke players manage NIL and social media as the program’s general manager. “And we’re like: ‘That’s great, too. That’s totally fine.’ … Cooper falls much more in that bucket. I have to look, but I’m not sure the last time he posted on any of his social channels. He can passively grow his brand and use Duke and our channels to tell the story for him.” As far as reach goes, it helps to enter college with 800,000 Instagram followers, a product of a cultural obsession with bite-sized highlights and finding the next big thing. Jack Adler and his NIL marketing company, Out2Win, have an algorithm that boils an athlete’s social media influence into a catchall metric. Flagg has the highest score of all men’s basketball players, thanks in large part to how many comments and likes he generates, plus how his following has grown in just a few months. “In this generation, some athletes’ kids are growing up wanting to be Mr. Beast more than they want to be LeBron James,” Adler said. “Cooper is almost an anomaly, an athlete with a huge following almost solely because of how talented he is as a basketball player.”