The Golden State Warriors plus K-pop music star BamBam equaled viral success on Wednesday when the two partnered with New Style Media Group and Fanatics to launch limited-edition T-shirts, sweatshirts and other merchandise.
Even better, for BamBam fans, the first 50 people who made purchases got to meet the musician — which helped draw a big crowd to the Warriors store at Chase Center in San Francisco.
BamBam, a Thai musician based in South Korea, had been part of the globally recognized K-pop band Got7. He recently went solo and has amassed over 10 million followers on Twitter and 15.9 million on Instagram.
An exciting day for @bambam1a fans at Warriors Shop at Thrive City!#BamBamxGSW pic.twitter.com/YrnVEfJVjp
— Warriors Shop (@warriorsshop) April 7, 2022
The initial tweet announcing that the collaboration was live had over 18,000 retweets and over 31,000 likes on twitter as of Thursday morning.
This wasn’t an impromptu decision, either, as the Warriors have been working to set up new ways to expand their brand outside of traditional influencer marketing opportunities. This activation could end up being one of many more for the Warriors.
In September, the Warriors named BamBam as an official ambassador. BamBam even tweeted his support for Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins to make the NBA All-Star Game. Wiggins finished with the fifth-most votes received.
That relationship between the team and the pop star then grew into this exclusive merch drop in what turned out to be a big success for both sides.
“I think this has been everything that we wanted it to be thus far. We kind of wanted to take an influencer where two brands come together, but there’s no real connection, there’s no real affiliation, try to take that and make it a little bit deeper,” Warriors chief legal officer David Kelly said. “Do more than just the typical, hey, you tweet about us, we say great things about you and everyone’s happy. We wanted to actually have product that shows the connection.”
The other portion of the activation is that BamBam will also be performing his new song, “Wheels Up,” at halftime of the Warriors’ final home game on Thursday with local musician Maizin.