LOS ANGELES — USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb and her star participant, JuJu Watkins, had been invited to the annual Los Angeles Dodgers Basis Blue Diamond Gala in Could. In a who’s-who world of L.A. glitterati, Gottlieb was astounded by how many individuals flocked to Watkins. Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts and proprietor Mark Walter wished to fulfill her. Magic Johnson and his spouse, Cookie, came visiting. A piece of Los Angeles Lakers personnel had been , too.
“In all places I’m turning, these followers and these individuals which can be right here go, ‘JuJu! JuJu!’” Gottlieb stated. “She’s as recognizable with (her) bun (coiffure) as any of the Dodgers and was the largest star. I got here again and I stated to my employees and the administration right here, this was subsequent degree. Amongst L.A., she is type of the star amongst the celebs.”
Watkins was coming off a historic first season that noticed her set the NCAA file for factors by a freshman and lead the Trojans to their first convention title in a decade and first Elite Eight look in 30 years. Her bun grew to become well-known in its personal proper, and a nationwide AT&T industrial throughout final season’s March Insanity featured NBA famous person Joel Embiid, amongst others, making an attempt out the look.
Watkins had already introduced USC basketball again from relative obscurity. The promise of what she might be and what which means for this system and town is evolving in actual time because the Trojans begin the NCAA Match as a No. 1 seed, internet hosting the primary two rounds on their residence court docket.
The sophomore sensation and the individuals round her have been getting ready for this chance earlier than she began faculty. Watkins signed with Klutch Sports activities as a junior in highschool and has been constructing her model portfolio ever since. As a Los Angeles native, it has at all times been a part of the plan to make use of her affect to raise her group — a earlier partnership with Lids allowed her to design a hat that highlighted her neighborhood of Watts — and selecting to attend USC allowed her to stay in the identical highlight.
“L.A. is only a great spot so far as alternative and relationships,” Watkins stated. “I really feel like L.A. performs an enormous half in my legacy and what I do on and off the court docket.”
Town is drawn to Watkins. The Trojans averaged 1,037 followers at residence video games in 2022-23, per information from the NCAA. Throughout Watkins’ freshman season, that quantity spiked to 4,279 and additional elevated to five,932 throughout the 2024-25 common season. Along with former USC gamers, Watkins has introduced out a variety of celebrities to the Galen Heart. Actors, musicians and different influential stars, together with Sanaa Lathan, Leslie Jones, Vanessa Bryant, Flea, Snoop Dogg and Michael B. Jordan, have cheered from USC courtside seats.
In anticipation of the additional consideration, this system reached out to get a way of what was to come back, contacting the Massive Ten and Iowa, together with former Hawkeyes head coach Lisa Bluder, earlier than the season started.
Caitlin Clark had been the talisman for ladies’s basketball followers throughout her senior season at Iowa, drawing historic crowds and TV scores en path to breaking a number of scoring information. The Hawkeyes’ run to back-to-back nationwide title video games culminated within the highest-rated nationwide championship sport of all time, outdoing the lads’s last the subsequent day.
When Clark turned professional alongside former LSU star Angel Reese, and with UConn star Paige Bueckers getting into her last faculty season, Watkins grew to become the pure inheritor obvious to fill the famous person vacuum, each within the Massive Ten and nationally.
Because of this, USC up to date its safety protocols, including a wristband coverage to regulate the particular crowds permitted to remain within the area after video games. The Massive Ten helped deal with pregame and postgame protocols on the highway, and Bluder shared particulars about how you can keep privateness at lodges. Watkins’ agent, Jade-Li English, added that safety is a specific subject of curiosity given how recognizable Watkins is in her residence metropolis — with or with out her bun.
JuJu Watkins indicators her autograph for certainly one of her many bun-copying followers. (Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Photos)
When the Trojans went on the highway this season for his or her inaugural Massive Ten marketing campaign, each college (aside from Iowa, which offered out each residence sport) noticed an uptick in attendance. The JuJu Bump produced a mean attendance enhance of 75 p.c, punctuated by Rutgers practically tripling its common crowd when USC visited. Throughout the nation, mothers and dads in Watkins jerseys introduced their daughters sporting their hair in buns to video games.
“It was exhausting to foretell this till you’re residing in it in actual time,” Gottlieb stated. “All of us had a imaginative and prescient for her serving to to actually develop this program, however I feel that the gravitational pull within the change within the fan help is de facto fairly exceptional.”
That Watkins’ arrival into faculty basketball has coincided with an general growth for the game has solely enhanced her reputation and her alternatives. Her portfolio is in depth, with 16 present nationwide advertising offers, together with Nike, State Farm, Gatorade and Fanatics. Her picture is inescapable whether or not strolling round Los Angeles — the place she has a three-building-wide Nike billboard in downtown — or turning on the tv.
“We’re capable of align JuJu with manufacturers which can be leaders of their respective industries and align with manufacturers which have a pure synergy with ladies’s basketball,” Klutch Sports activities senior vp of athlete technique Brittany McCallum stated. “All of those companions have tv placements, TV broadcasts throughout the NCAA Match. So these partnerships leverage nationwide TV visibility, permitting for JuJu to be part of a bigger cultural second, whereas additionally amplifying the model’s presence throughout one of the watched occasions in ladies’s sports activities.”
Watkins stated her collaboration with Funko Pop was certainly one of her favorites, as she helped with the main points of its bun and eyelashes being as close to her likeness as doable. She signed no less than 30 of them throughout USC’s Choice Sunday social gathering. Her advert spot with Chipotle was one other standout because it included the complete Trojans roster.
However the partnership with Nike has actually opened doorways for Watkins. McCallum stated her 19-year-old shopper was over the moon and “utterly caught off guard” when she discovered she can be showing in a Tremendous Bowl industrial.
“Seeing these moments and the ability behind what Nike is placing behind ladies’s sports activities proper now has been actually particular to her and doubtless one thing that wasn’t within the playing cards however positively aligns on the place the ladies’s sport is true now,” McCallum stated. “And JuJu may be very grateful to be part of the motion.”
The JuJu Watkins rise doesn’t occur with out her corresponding basketball success. She adopted up her freshman marketing campaign with one other first-team All-American season, becoming a member of Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo because the third and fourth gamers to earn first-team honors as freshmen and sophomores. She led USC to its first convention regular-season title in additional than three many years.
With all the added consideration, the main target stays on basketball. She doesn’t do pregame interviews, preferring to remain within the zone. Gottlieb says Watkins goes exhausting in each rep in each apply, accepting challenges on each ends of the ground. After coping with cramping throughout her freshman season, Watkins put further emphasis on hydration this season to negate that situation.
Snoop Dogg in da home! He’s sporting a JuJu Watkins match.
Michael B. Jordan can be in attendance for the USC vs. Notre Dame sport. pic.twitter.com/FAlD6NCc4A
— Isabel Gonzalez (@cisabelg) November 23, 2024
Despite the fact that her star flip has been choreographed, and the expectation was for her to succeed, she is reaching heights that had been inconceivable to foretell.
Gottlieb joked that her personal identification is now outlined by way of Watkins. At a USA Basketball occasion, she was figuring out within the resort fitness center with Daybreak Staley and the household of one of many U-17 gamers. The younger boy within the household excitedly instructed his dad, there’s Daybreak Staley, earlier than turning round and noticing, there’s JuJu Watkins’ coach! On the 2024 Closing 4, a father requested Gottlieb for an image along with his daughter as a result of she was a large Watkins fan, excited to merely get an image with somebody in Watkins’ orbit. Gottlieb felt compelled to level out that she’d be the one within the image, not JuJu.
Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick attended the regular-season finale between USC and UCLA. Afterward, he stated, “JuJu Watkins is certainly one of one, she’s unbelievable. First time seeing her play in particular person, however clearly I’ve watched her earlier than. She lived as much as the hype.”
The hype prepare is unprecedented at this level, The place it leads is anybody’s guess.
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen/ The Athletic; Photographs of Angel Reese, JuJu Watkins and Caitlin Clark: Harry How / Getty Photos, Brian Fluharty / Getty Photos, Eakin Howard / Getty Photos)
