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Marcus Crenshaw Talks Selling She Hoops Network, And Being Inspired By Rich Paul

Courtesy of Marcus Crenshaw

Marcus ‘CoolestCeo’ Crenshaw is an innovator, motivator, brand specialist, and all-around businessman. With over 10 years of marketing experience, Marcus is considered one of the best agents in women’s basketball.

His love for basketball came at an early age in Detroit, Michigan. Crenshaw grew up a lefty shooting guard and when on to star at Makenzie High school where Marcus recorded a state’s best 29.8 points per game to go along with a state’s best 11 assists per game.

Marcus played collegiate basketball at Cal State Fullerton and received a Bachelor’s degree in African American Studies. He went on to play 5 years of European Basketball as well.

After playing five years overseas, the “CoolestCeo” helped create brands, logos, websites and secure contracts and advice for more than 30 WNBA athletes through his agency, The Fam Sports. Players including Tiffany Hayes, Chennedy Carter, Courtney Williams, Cheyenne Parker, Odyssey Sims and many more. Crenshaw is known for building one of the world’s largest women’s platform, “She Hoops Network,” and in less than a year, over 100,000 Instagram followers. After such a success, Marcus was able to sell the company “She Hoops Network” to the major media “Overtime,” and they renamed OvertimeWBB.

Crenshaw, recently sat down to discuss his journey with Landonbuford.com.

You are the founder of the “She Hoops Network,” what inspired you to create the platform in the first place?

I was coming off selling another business and was in a creative space, and I was thinking to myself. It was me and the Atlanta Dream’s Tiffany Hayes in the car one day. We were talking and at the time we were selling merchandise and other things for my other company. We did not have a place to sell our merch and that was really the whole vision behind the “She Hoops Network” of lets get everybody on one platform.

You eventually sold the platform to Overtime, what was the deciding factor for that decision?

The deciding factor was a conversation with Chloe Pavlech, who was working with me. She and I were chatting on the phone one day, and a lot people were interested in purchasing it. However, when Overtime approached me, I knew they were like the feature of the game. They had a huge following on the internet, and I knew they had the resource to take it to the next level. This was also Chloe’s dream too, because she was working for me and I told her I would put her in a better position. As for me, I want to focus more on the sports agency side of the business.

Last season the WNBA broke records despite being in a global pandemic. What do think they can do to capitalize on our revenue opportunities moving forward?

They have to continue thinking out of the box and being creative since they already have some sponsors such as Deloitte, Nike,  AT&T, Essentia Water, Cover Girl, and their television deal. Maybe they can have seven of their top players create an instructional video to sell to young girls that are interested in playing at a young age.

How do 必利勁 media members reach WNBA players to help sell the league when players avoid interviews requests?

There are a lot of players that do not know that you are trying to reach out to them. For example, you look for a player’s agent, and the agent ignores people because the players are cool. When I go down my roster of players, I know they would be down for interviews. If someone hits me, I will set it up, but not a lot of agents are cool, and they only care about the agency fee. I think the best way is to write on the players’ posts on Instagram.

You own your own a必利勁 gency can you share what it was like in the beginning as far as struggles?

To be honest, I really did not have and struggles in the beginning of starting The Fam Sports agency. For me it has been pretty much easy for me because I recruited well. I am two years in, and one & half with my own company. I had a partner at first, but I decided to do it on my own and we are the first growing company in the business. I just been having fun, but that is the thing when you are black running a business, people just assumed that you struggled at the beginning. For me that was not the case at all.

Klutch Sports and Rich Paul are at the forefront on the men’s side of basketball and you see success in women’s basketball. How does it feel to have someone that looks like you at the top of the industry?

I am inspired by Rich [Paul] and LeBron James, how they stuck together, and how he is at the forefront right now. People in our industry hate it, and you can see how they tried to change the rules. People are writing messages about him, myself, and that might the hardest struggle. People are always writing things up on me every time I sign a new player, but Rich Paul inspired me, and I love the moves that he is making. He sold some of his company, but that was a smart business decision. Also, LeBron James helped him get his foot in the door, but he inspired me because you cannot be stupid to acquire the acquisitions that he is making.

What do you think?

Written by Landon Buford

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