We’ve all heard about the aspiring musicians that post their demos on their Myspace pages and then somehow get signed by a label. ESPN “Outside the Lines” has an interesting piece on 8-year-old  Marquise Walker - who’s dad has implemented a YouTube marketing strategy in hopes to one day get him a college scholarship, and ultimately a place in the NBA. The concept isn’t entirely new, because you see videos of young children in sports posted by their parents all the time – one such scenario ending with a young soccer player getting picked up by a club team if i remember correctly.

Search on Marquise on YouTube and you get around 30 videos ranging from him dribbling at age 3, practicing, and meeting with stars from high school, college, and the NBA (including Lebron James). The OTL feature also includes video from Dave Odom (former Wake Forest coach), Mike Irvin (dubbed at the time, the top 6th grader by SI), Steve Jones (internet guru??), Anita Thomas (Psychologist), and Wayne Dresh (reporter) with their thoughts on the situation.

Possible additions to the strategy would be to have an official site for Marquise to follow along the journey  basically creating his own reality show – who knows maybe ESPN would pick it up for distribution.