The Instagram Stars of High-School Basketball
Zion Williamson has 1.5 million followers on Instagram and more than 100,000 on Twitter, and tens of thousands more keep up with his every move via a network of dedicated fan accounts. On his most recent Instagram post, which garnered more than 200,000 likes, fans praised him as “the next king of the NBA,” writing things like, “I follow you, my dream is playing like you” and “GOAT.” Williamson, a 17-year-old basketball prodigy, is king of a growing group of breakout high-school basketball players who have simultaneously become social-media superstars.
Before Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter, high-school basketball players played for two core audiences: local fans and college scouts.
“If you think about when you went to high school, maybe you cared about your own high-school team and rival, but literally 100 miles away you didn’t care. Local sports was really local,” says Dan Porter, the CEO of Overtime, a sports digital-media platform. “What most high-school players used to be known for was height, weight, how many points they scored, and if they were gonna go to Duke [University].”
Sometimes a highly notable player like LeBron James would break through to the mainstream, but until they reached the top levels of college ball or the NBA, most young players had no ability to reach a national audience or establish themselves as a
