How the Club 520 podcast got a sneaker deal with Adidas

The unfiltered authenticity of Brandon “B. Hen” Hendricks, DJ Wells and retired NBA journeyman Jeff Teague has given the Club 520 podcast the power to act as hoop culture’s realest mouthpiece and Adidas Basketball’s newest partner.

According to a brand statement, the partnership with Club 520 “will leverage the podcast’s authentic connection to basketball culture to amplify Adidas Basketball and the milestone launch of James Harden’s 10th signature shoe.”

Birthed in the basement of Teague’s Indianapolis home in 2023, Club 520 has amassed more than 422 million views on YouTube and has cracked the Top 20 rankings among Apple Sports podcasts.

In the past year, Club 520 has spread its wings into the live event space through a sold-out tour and added to its list of accolades by securing a shoe deal with Adidas.

All the while, they’ve leveled up their business and grown their audience by staying true to the humor and honesty fans and brands have come to love.

“That’s why this relationship is wonderful: They take us for who we are,” Wells told Andscape of the Adidas sponsorship.

Viral stories, barbershop banter, and the ability to laugh at anything – including themselves – have afforded Club 520 nationwide fanfare and online traction. The recent Adidas contract proves the culmination of not just virtual influence but boots-on-the-ground impact.

“The shoe deal is crazy,” Wells said. “But to see people genuinely happy for you, I don’t care if they would’ve just given us a sweatsuit and a pizza, that energy can’t be replicated.”

For Wells, a lifelong sneakerhead and self-made media engine, the chance to have a footwear sponsorship without playing in the league is the latest step in just how far his Indianapolis-based production can go.

The following is a conversation with Wells about Club 520’s unprecedented sneaker deal, his path to podcasting, and where the Naptown talent sees his dreams going next.

Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.

Tell me about the Adidas deal and how it came about.

Teague was an Adidas athlete. Some things went left, but he still had those relationships. At All-Star 2024, I know people from the brand like [Head of Basketball Sports Marketing] Cam Mason. We worked at the mall together and have been super cool. It only made sense.

What are the next steps for Club 520 and Adidas?

A lot of things are possible going into next year. 520 PEs [Player Exclusive sneakers] would be crazy. We’re going to be part of brand activations, and we’re tapped into the amateur circuit with Teague being a high school coach. You’ll see us at events and a couple of Adidas athletes on the show.

We’re not forcing anything. We are who we are, and we’re genuine. You can tell if we’re trying to sell something, and we wouldn’t do our fans a service if we say, ‘Buy these!’ and you know we don’t wear it. You’ll see us Three Striped-out our way.

Being a lifelong sneakerhead, what can fans expect from you and Adidas on the show?

I’ve got some old Adidas heat to pull out and some new stuff. I’ve got old Yeezys. Jeff has old heat from the NMD days, the first batch of Pharrells, BAPE collabs. I’ve got gems.

For the new stuff, I’m very high on the AE2. That’s a shoe that’s fresh out of the box ready to hoop in. The Harden 10 feels amazing. I haven’t got to hoop in them because I got them early and wanted to savor them before I violated them. The Jellyfish is crazy and one of the shoes of the year.

But for me? It’s not even the shoes. It’s some of the old Equipment merch. They always used quality materials for the basketball stuff. The old-school Louisville stuff, I’m ready to pull it out. The Jeremy Scotts, I’ve got a couple of those in the tuck.

From local help to calls in from legends, speak on the support you’ve been able to get and give through this first campaign.

My guy Wannmillion, he’s a helluva director from Indianapolis. People on production, the trucks, and camera were all from Indianapolis. We got an opportunity to do something on a major scale and bring people from our city. We’ve got a lot of talented people here who don’t get their just due.

To have Derrick Rose in the flesh in our commercial? To have James Harden hop on a FaceTime? These are people we respect who are big deals at the company. The energy to see people happy for you to win? I don’t care if they would’ve just given us a sweatsuit and a pizza, that energy can’t be replicated and is the real blessing from it all, honestly.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a brand-led campaign that doesn’t censor swearing.

C’mon, man! That’s why this relationship is wonderful: They take us for who we are.

How did your interest in sports media begin?

I grew up loving sports. I played baseball, and I’m from Indiana, so basketball is a part of everything. My dad used to have me up all night watching basketball with him. I always loved the game and played pickup.

At my high school, you could go to a vocational school for half a day. I picked Radio and TV, which has always been my first love. My dad always had me around sports and in the barbershop so I could have sports conversations with grown men – and know more than they did.

You went to college at Butler. What did that time do for your sports media career?

I went there for three years. Unfortunately, I didn’t graduate, but it was the golden era of Butler. Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack? I’m on campus as we go to two national championships. That’s how I met B. Hen because he was really good friends with Shelvin.

From there, your work in sports and media presence began to take shape.

I was figuring out life and ended up getting a job for the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate, the Indianapolis Indians. I was a statistician for the team. It was good work, but Triple-A schedules are crazy. That was my first time making a little money in the field.

I networked and saw I could work in the sports space. I became a dad, and in late 2010 we started the pod, That’s An Opinion. That helped me get my NBA credentials. God bless David Benner, the Pacers’ media director. He gave me a shot, and I started doing my own content with my guy, Chris Elliott.

I learned how to do everything by myself: editing, video work, player interviews, and networking. I’d go to the National Association of Black Journalists convention every year, and everything clicked. I knew what to do and was seeing people do it in real time. If vets are looking at me and giving me love? Let’s run it up.

Then COVID came and f—– up all my momentum. That changed how we had to interact with players, and the way I was doing content was completely gone. I had to figure it out all over again.

A couple of years later, Club 520 seemingly comes out of nowhere.

520 started because me and B. Hen were podding. We had a place we were recording, but post-COVID it changed to recording at Jeff’s gym, the D1 Factory. Jeff was home one day and said, ‘I listen to y’all all the time. Let me hop on the pod.’ Jeff had just won the NBA championship [with Milwaukee in 2021], and he’d been the homie since high school. He came and did the pod.

What we’re doing now we’ve been doing for a very long time: argue in the basement until 6 a.m. about basketball and bulls—. After he retired, he was getting offers to do stuff, but really wanted to be a part of what we were doing and see where we could take it.

Club 520 was the club in his basement. We started recording there and called it Club 520. From there, we ran it up.

Was there a moment when it felt like you could go all in and full time on Club 520?

[Early on] I was still working a regular gig for the Pacers in IT. I had a 9-to-5, was a specialist for the Pacers’ organization, and doing 520. We got our chemistry right, made episodes, and had fun. People think the stories are manufactured, but if you watch our show you really don’t know what anybody is going to say.

We’ve known Jeff for a really long time, but a lot of stuff we’ll still look at him like, ‘Are you serious?’ If you know Jeff, he’s approachable but to himself. But he’s always had this charisma.

We caught a stride, and we believed. It was rough early on because we started it from nothing. We didn’t have a cameraman, and Jeff didn’t have an Instagram. For us to catch a stride early was mind-blowing because we didn’t know what we were really getting into.

People say you need a name to kick off. Jeff’s notable, but he wasn’t really visible. He’s not big on social media, doesn’t talk much, and you don’t know Jeff unless you really know Jeff. He had a helluva NBA career, but he takes it for what it is.

When we put out our first video episode with Josh Smith, that that set the tone. Then the PJ Tucker episode? Yeah, we’ve got something.

You guys rep hard for Indianapolis, but have also taken your show on the road in the past year. Talk about the local love and the live shows across the country.

It’s a good time to be from Indiana. The vibes are high. The sports teams are doing well, Pat McAfee is in the city going crazy, and we love our teams here. We love basketball, and you go on the road and see how many people really tap in. You can look at numbers, but the impact is different.

We signed a deal with our first partnership, and people were wary across the board because our numbers weren’t typically what would demand what we were demanding. But the impact was there. That’s the one thing you can’t fake. You walk into cities and people say, ‘I listen to you everyday on my drive home.’

The live shows are dope because you get to give back the energy people give you. There’s a lot of love out there for 520. We don’t have fans, we have family.

The basketball podcast space is a crowded one. What differentiates Club 520?

We laugh at ourselves. A lot of Jeff’s stories? He isn’t the beneficiary. Why would he lie about T-Mac punching him? Who’d make up that story and be happy to tell it? 

That’s why our friends rock with us. Everybody is dealing with the same stuff to different extremes. We’re happy to be relatable and be somebody’s release for a day.

For a young person reading this story and admiring your journey, what advice would you give them?

Anything can happen. You don’t know how you’ll get it, but if you’re prepared you’ll thrive. Hone your skills. It’s not easy because there are times I’ve been knocked down or made a game plan for a business. And in a moment, everything changed and had to start from scratch.

If this is something you love, stay educated and put in the work. Nobody is ever gonna see the work. They’ll only see your break and what you do with it. And it’s not for other people to see or understand. It’s for you.

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