AtlantaDan
10-27-2018, 07:43 AM
Good article on JuJu continuing to work on developing his brand. Excerpts and link below
After outrunning defensive backs through the first six weeks of the NFL season, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster spent his bye week eluding grenade launchers, machine-gun fire and the full cyber-arsenal at his opponents’ disposal in “Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.”
An avid video-gaming enthusiast, Smith-Schuster describes his favorite franchise, Call of Duty, as therapeutic, an off-hours respite from the grind of the NFL. Better still, it’s another way to connect with fans and extend his personal brand — something he has given a lot of thought to since declaring for the draft after his junior year at Southern California....
Smith-Schuster is a new-era NFL player who’s laying the foundation for his exit strategy while in the prime of his career. That could come in a few years (the average career of an NFL wide receiver is less than three years), or it could be a dozen years off, should he prove to be the next Larry Fitzgerald.
Either way, Smith-Schuster is shaking up norms for NFL players, peeling back the layers of his private life to show fans who he is via multiple social-media platforms. He’s not just on Twitter and Instagram, often with his 1-year-old French bulldog Boujee. Smith-Schuster has built a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGSvNGDkhdvuokEVVZ-Co_g) with more than 580,000 subscribers by posting videos of his Barcelona vacation, a summertime pool party and dog-park playtime. But the streaming of his Call of Duty sessions represents a deeper level of intimacy, inviting fans into his brain, in effect, as they follow along and critique his decision-making via chat in real time, without filter or audio delay.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/10/26/juju-smith-schuster-video-games-are-hobby-maybe-post-nfl-career/?utm_term=.2c877ea8a18f
JuJu may not make playing video games a post-NFL career. But given all the ads on TV during sporting events for video games I bet there are $$$ to be made for a high profile NFL player endorsing them.
Continue to be impressed with JuJu both on the field and for how savvy a 21 year old is in using social media for off the field marketing of his image. Noteworthy this is not a Post-Gazette article but the Washington Post, which has national reach. Whoever is advising JuJu is doing a better job of getting their message through than whoever is trying to get through to Bell.
After outrunning defensive backs through the first six weeks of the NFL season, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster spent his bye week eluding grenade launchers, machine-gun fire and the full cyber-arsenal at his opponents’ disposal in “Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.”
An avid video-gaming enthusiast, Smith-Schuster describes his favorite franchise, Call of Duty, as therapeutic, an off-hours respite from the grind of the NFL. Better still, it’s another way to connect with fans and extend his personal brand — something he has given a lot of thought to since declaring for the draft after his junior year at Southern California....
Smith-Schuster is a new-era NFL player who’s laying the foundation for his exit strategy while in the prime of his career. That could come in a few years (the average career of an NFL wide receiver is less than three years), or it could be a dozen years off, should he prove to be the next Larry Fitzgerald.
Either way, Smith-Schuster is shaking up norms for NFL players, peeling back the layers of his private life to show fans who he is via multiple social-media platforms. He’s not just on Twitter and Instagram, often with his 1-year-old French bulldog Boujee. Smith-Schuster has built a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGSvNGDkhdvuokEVVZ-Co_g) with more than 580,000 subscribers by posting videos of his Barcelona vacation, a summertime pool party and dog-park playtime. But the streaming of his Call of Duty sessions represents a deeper level of intimacy, inviting fans into his brain, in effect, as they follow along and critique his decision-making via chat in real time, without filter or audio delay.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/10/26/juju-smith-schuster-video-games-are-hobby-maybe-post-nfl-career/?utm_term=.2c877ea8a18f
JuJu may not make playing video games a post-NFL career. But given all the ads on TV during sporting events for video games I bet there are $$$ to be made for a high profile NFL player endorsing them.
Continue to be impressed with JuJu both on the field and for how savvy a 21 year old is in using social media for off the field marketing of his image. Noteworthy this is not a Post-Gazette article but the Washington Post, which has national reach. Whoever is advising JuJu is doing a better job of getting their message through than whoever is trying to get through to Bell.