Dick’s, Nike go all in on basketball with star-studded March Madness ads

It’s every young athlete’s dream to get scouted. And while that experience typically goes down on the court, in one March Madness campaign, it happens on the floor of a Dick’s Sporting Goods.

To close out the college hoops season, the retailer partnered with Nike for a campaign called “The Scouts are Out,” which stars WNBA legend Diana Taurasi and rapper and comedian Dave Burd, aka Lil Dicky, as scouts looking for the next generation of basketball stars at Dick’s stores. The campaign includes a series of spots that also feature Nike, Jordan Brand, and Converse athletes like Jayson Tatum, Sabrina Ionescu, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

The basketball vertical is a “critical business” for Dick’s, and “The Scouts are Out” represents a significant step into the sport in terms of marketing efforts, VP of Brand Building Melissa Christian said. While Dick’s has run March Madness campaigns before and included basketball as one of many sports in other ads, this campaign is one of the first from the brand focused exclusively on basketball, she said.

Despite the emphasis on the sport, the aspirational tone and overall plot of the ads are meant to appeal to non-basketball fans, too, in an effort to drive engagement and sales.

“There’s so much rich storytelling that happens around these student athletes competing at such an elite level,” Christian told Marketing Brew. “It just draws everyone in. Even people who aren’t following college basketball all year want to watch March Madness, because you get to see people in really high-pressure situations achieve the impossible sometimes, and you just never know what’s going to happen. That’s something that, for us, is really appealing.”

Talent pool

After airing a star-studded March Madness campaign last year, Christian said her team knew they wanted to tap into the tournament again this year. When the Nike team suggested a co-branded effort, “it made a ton of sense,” given Nike’s talent roster and the fact that Dick’s carries its basketball products.

During the development process, the teams discussed the idea that athletes across levels, including those who will go on to compete professionally, shop at Dick’s, which brought them to the concept of scouting. In addition to the seasoned pros, 2025 NBA Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle and top 2026 prospect Tyran Stokes are part of the campaign.

The cast intentionally includes players at different stages of their careers, as well as representation from both the men’s and women’s games, Christian said. The ads are running throughout the men’s and women’s tournaments on broadcast, digital, and social channels.

While the spots are loaded with basketball talent, the premise is designed to appeal to all kinds of consumers with “a fun story” and easily recognizable athletes, Christian told us. Her team is tracking brand metrics like social engagement and commercial metrics like store and site traffic, and also hopes to see a boost in people associating Dick’s with basketball, she said.

The marketing push comes as Dick’s has recorded record revenue amid a surge in youth sports spending. The retailer reported $14.1 billion in net sales in 2025, and it anticipates sales of between $14.5 billion and $14.7 billion in 2026.

Future stars

From a branding standpoint, basketball is a popular sport for a host of companies across industries, given its relevance in terms of both fandom and participation in the US. As a brand that carries basketball footwear and apparel, the sport is all but essential for Dick’s, and March Madness presents an opportunity to associate with training, preparation, and “athletes’ quests for greatness,” Christian said—which is something that, she noted, both the Dick’s and Nike teams strive to do.

Those concepts, and, subsequently, the new campaign, stretch beyond basketball, and Christian said the work may eventually extend to other sporting events throughout the year. In addition to full campaigns, Christian said her team plans to continue pushing digital and social assets that have to do with basketball in order to stay relevant to consumers who are drawn in by the sport.

“Basketball transcends in this cultural landscape,” she said. “It drives so much, from trends in footwear, trends in apparel, and Dick’s Sporting Goods is really trying to lean into those spaces more and more.”