Enjoy Basketball Is Bringing Positivity To Basketball Media

The NBA Finals are going to a Game 7. The unexpected matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers will be settled on Sunday, June 22 in Oklahoma City. Enjoy Basketball, the fan-centric content platform, has been following the series every step of the way, delivering innovative content for basketball fans across YouTube and ESPN2. But it won’t stop there.

Enjoy Basketball styles itself as a media and lifestyle brand celebrating the positivity and joy of basketball. According to the company’s website, their team is “dedicated to creating the most uplifting community for hoop enthusiasts worldwide, while enhancing the game’s experience through engaging content and the highest quality of apparel.”

The face of Enjoy Basketball is Kenny Beecham, a content creator and entrepreneur who made his start recording NBA2K YouTube play-along videos on his handle KOT4Q. Before long Beecham’s voice began to attract a younger and more diverse crowd. He was eventually signed by Bleacher Report as a content creator before being approached by his current managers Cody and Cole Hock.

The Hock brothers recognized Beecham’s talent for connecting with sports fans and in their words, “had a vision to elevate him and put resources around him.” Signing Beecham just before the COVID-19 pandemic, the brothers sought creative ways to have him produce content, including a ten-episode podcast series and using his creative expertise for apparel sales.

During the pandemic, more people had time to consume content, and “so many creators exploded,” Beecham says, himself included. Although the initial podcast series lasted just ten episodes, the feedback in comments was positive. Fans looked to Beecham for an escape, for unique basketball insight, and often, younger fans looked up to him as a fan turned content creator who transformed his passion into his career.

Beecham and the Hock brothers took that feedback and ran with it. At present, the Chicago native operates on his own and as part of a group of friends on various shows under the Enjoy Basketball umbrella. Whether it’s with Members on the Board, on his Small Ball with Kenny Beecham podcast, or on the Enjoy Bball YouTube channel, Beecham is doing what most sports fans dream of doing: talking about the ins and outs of the game he loves — in his case, basketball — with friends and followers.

Enjoy Basketball’s content includes quizzes, conversations, NBA pictionary games, and more, all of which showcase Beecham’s love for the game of basketball. He says in recent years he’s been struck by the amount of negativity around the sport. For a game that offers fans so much to cheer for, there has been a lot of complaining about the overly analytics-driven league. Beecham is striving to bring positivity back to the conversation, highlighting the best elements of the game.

Beecham says Enjoy Basketball’s content is “a nice middle ground for casual and diehard sports fans,” a place where everyone can enter the conversation and find something they like. And the channel plans to expand beyond just the NBA.

Since forming in 2022, Enjoy Basketball has established a partnership with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, its Members on the Board show has aired live on ESPN2, and Kenny and co. have done NBA draft coverage.

This year, Enjoy Basketball will also be anchoring ESPN’s NBA Draft coverage, providing fan insight and analysis on the players going in the first round alongside long-time ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst. As Beecham says, “We are such a laid-back and friendship-oriented show, it’s less X’s and O’s and more fun conversation.”

On the apparel side, the Hock brothers have expanded the operation from limited-quantity quarterly drops to selling NBA-licensed merchandise in collaboration with Fanatics. Cole, the head of the commerce side of the enterprise, says, “The goal was to have a top NBA player wearing Enjoy in the tunnel before a game.” It seemed like a long shot, but about a year after putting that goal on their vision board, they got Jimmy Butler to wear some of their pieces. Since then, they’ve had lift off.

The deal with Fanatics was two years in the making and enabled Enjoy to sell official hoodies, t-shirts, and other apparel. But they are not resting on their laurels. The team is already exploring opportunities further afield. Cole said they are looking into potential lifestyle apparel and are in early conversations with potential partners.

On the content side, things are humming along. Enjoy has its subscriber newsletter written in Beecham’s voice, it has its variety of YouTube shows, and it is developing new properties with shows like T Dot and WAG Talk. The latter is a casual short-form chat where the host does trivia with the wives and girlfriends of professional players, has already aired roughly 16 episodes and has garnered over 115 million views. Recently, Beecham even got NBA commissioner Adam Silver on his show, which was a landmark moment for the brand.

Looking forward, Cody says Enjoy is hoping to reinvest in the space and push content around the WNBA, college, high school leagues, and even the international game.

As for the action on the court in the NBA, Beecham seems to think this season is a perfect encapsulation of the negativity around the game. Despite new teams taking center stage, fans have found new complaints about the league. The Thunder and Pacers finals series may not be the ratings machine a Lakers-Knicks series would have been, but it is bringing to light two opposing styles of basketball. Beecham says much of the negativity around the league is because “people haven’t been able to accept the evolution of sport.”

Unsurprisingly to his viewers, Beecham thinks the game is actually in a very strong place. Different styles are emerging again, and there is more quality up and down the court. Gone are the days of super teams, although Beecham is unequivocal in saying, “The finals are going to solidify what I’ve said all season long, that this OKC team is the real deal.”

Beecham and his friends have seen the media landscape transform in front of their eyes. While established media still has the dominant programs — just look at the drama over the future of Inside the NBA — individual content creators have seen a major spike in popularity since COVID. What seemed impossible just a few years ago is not only possible, it’s reality. Without any background in journalism, he and his friends have developed successful careers talking about the game they love.

“5 years ago I would’ve said no,” says Beecham when asked if his programs are more appealing to young fans. “Established media has their own shows and they’re successful,” but clearly there is room for both, and there is an appetite for a casual approach to the game that allows (new) fans to, well, Enjoy Basketball.