The gamification of investing and the rise of hyped-up ‘meme stocks’ had made first-time investors think winning big in the market should happen overnight. Rookie investors thought what iShares offers – Exchange-Traded Funds or ‘ETFs’ – were the slow and boring ways to invest. And the last people they were going to let tell them otherwise was a giant old asset management firm.

Fortunately there was a group of people that young investors did listen to. A group that’s exposed to the same risks, but at a more dramatic scale: an estimated 60% of NBA players go broke after just five years of retirement.

Young NBA rookies come into significant amounts of money very quickly – often without financial expertise on how to invest it wisely. So we created a first-of-its-kind sponsorship deal for five of the top-10 2023 NBA rookies – paid out in iShares ETFs they agreed to hold on to and let grow over time. By enlisting the first class of ‘Future Baller$’ to share their iShares sponsorship story, we got an impatient generation excited to play the long game, driving $1.1B in net new business for Blackrock despite a declining market.