Notte’s Notes
- Know your teammates. Angel Reese’s brand partners like Reebok and business partners at Togethxr bought in because they know exactly what she’s about both on court and off. Reese and her team are aware of who fits their unapologetic, yet approachable sport-and-culture brand profile and who should likely keep walking. Keeping the guesswork out of brand marketing leads to a lot fewer upsets down the line.
- People as priorities. Hear this, agencies? One of the reasons Angel Reese has kept her team so long and has chosen the partners she has is because she knows who’s putting her No. 1 on the call sheet. When you make a client feel special, they will often return the favor.
- Consult your network: Angel Reese and Togethxr are a great example of why it pays to treat people well along the way. Togethxr joining Reese on each step of her climb to the pros made it far more likely that she’d come back as an investor as she began pursuing other interests like media. Put in the effort for those “small” clients, as they might come back in a big way.
In 2025, Angel Reese transformed rebounds, championships, ads, and modeling appearances into her own industry. She now owns a sizable stake in her future heading into 2026.
A national champion with LSU in 2023 and a WNBA All-Rookie team member in 2024, Reese just made her second WNBA All-Star appearance and won her first championship in the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league. Dubbed “Bayou Barbie” in Baton Rouge and “Chi Barbie” with the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, she took the title of “owner” after buying a stake in the DC Power Football Club women’s soccer team in the USL Super League in 2024 and joining the ownership group of media and commerce company Togethxr earlier this year.
Angel Reese is often affectionately referred to as "Bayou" or "Chi" Barbie
The Togethxr deal placed her alongside women's sports icons Alex Morgan, Sue Bird, Simone Manuel, Chloe Kim, and Michelle Wie West. But Reese told Togethxr co-founder Jessica Robertson she wanted something specific: a voice for her generation of athletes.
“This year was about ownership, not just participation,” Reese said. “I wanted to show that an athlete, especially a woman, can build a business, a legacy, and a product that lives beyond the game. Going into 2026, it’s about scale– expanding what we’ve built, taking control of my narrative across new spaces, and continuing to break through ceilings and show what’s possible when female athletes own their brands fully.”
From Vogue Features to Signature Sneakers
Reese and her crew took every business relationship to the next level this year. After Vogue featured her WNBA debut last year, she opened 2025 on its cover. Her college NIL deal with Beats by Dre evolved into major campaigns for the Beats Pill and Beats Solo 4. A 2023 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue appearance became a stepping stone to the 2025 Met Gala host committee and the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show runway.
Among college deals with Airbnb and pro partnerships like Hershey's Reese's brand, Reese and her team signed with Reebok in 2023 to lead the brand's basketball comeback. After teasing her new logo during the summer, she dropped 15 rebounds wearing unreleased Angel Reese 1s during the WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis. On September 18, she debuted her signature shoe's "Diamond Dust," "Receipts Ready," and "Mebounds" models—they sold out immediately.
Angel modeling her Mebounds (Reebok)
The October 24 release—the purple "Charm City"—also sold out. On November 14, Reebok debuted the Slate Grey and King Tiago models, the latter named after Reese's Yorkie. Jide Osifeso, Head of Basketball at Reebok, noted that the AR1's success revitalizes Reebok's basketball brand while bringing needed perspective on women's sports.
Angel wearing her Tiagos earlier this fall (Reebok)
“From day one, she challenged us to think differently about what a women’s signature could be, something that transcends beyond the court and impacts culture,” Osifeso said. “We aim to champion confidence and individuality, we’re able to create a line that is both performance and lifestyle and is built to inspire.”
A closer look at Angel's Tiago model, developed in collaboration with Reebok, specifically to cater to her peers' unique brand of cool (Reebok)
Reese's brand strength in basketball and culture makes it one of the sport's most secure properties right now. As women's basketball heads into 2026 facing an unsettled WNBA labor dispute and competition for Unrivaled from the newly formed Project B overseas 5-on-5 league, Reese stands on a solid foundation of brand partnerships and equity investments. With longtime agent Jeanine Ogbonnaya at The Clearview Group and communications partners Jaclyn Reilly and Kirsti Yess, co-founders of Ethos Group—all aboard since before her LSU championship—Reese can build her brand from relative stability.
While most young athletes are asked to help brands sell, Reese and her team are getting everyone to buy in.
“This year has really felt like a turning point for me–not just as an athlete, but as a brand,” Reese said. “Everything we’ve built since college–the partnerships, the storytelling, the authenticity–started to come together in a real way.”
“Looking back on 2025, I’m proud that my portfolio reflects that: it’s strong, it’s diverse, and it feels true to me. Every deal has helped tell a different part of my story, and seeing that pay off this year has been special.”
Building the Foundation
Before Reese won her national title at LSU, she and Ogbonnaya studied the biggest playbook in U.S. sports business and dreamed bigger.
Early in her career, Ogbonnaya managed NFL draft prospects and learned quickly that an athlete's narrative and positioning mattered as much as their talent when building their brand. She developed an eye for each prospect's unique traits and created player stories that made their qualities seem scarce.
When she and Reese teamed up, Ogbonnaya treated her not as a women's basketball player, "but as a once-in-a-generation personality whose confidence, fashion, and cultural impact transcended sport."
“After her national championship at LSU, we didn’t see her moment as a ‘peak’ but as the beginning of something much bigger,” Ogbonnaya said. “We envisioned Angel as a cultural icon, someone who could redefine what it means to be a woman athlete by owning her image, her voice, and her business. From day one, our goal wasn’t just endorsements, it was longevity, ownership, and building a brand that could live far beyond basketball.”
Early on, selectivity paid off. Ogbonnaya noted that she and Reese "turned down more deals than they accepted" early in Reese's career to set expectations for brands and ensure each partnership reinforced her values and how she wanted young girls to view her. While acknowledging that an athlete's prime can be brief, Ogbonnaya realized that diluting Reese's brand short-term could cost her equity and longevity with more valuable partners later.
Today, Reese's stable portfolio of brand partners gives her priority and represents her interests.
“Having that foundation gives me freedom–freedom to be selective, to say no when something doesn’t align, and to focus on long-term impact over quick wins,” Reese said. “The stability we’ve built allows me to think bigger and move with confidence. It’s also taught me patience and resilience–things don’t happen overnight, and there are always challenges that come with growth. But when you have real partnerships, a solid team, and a clear vision, it makes every challenge worth it. It’s about building something that lasts–on and off the court.”
Ethos Group's Reilly and Yess noted that shoring up that foundation of brand partners often means finding the right scale and voice. Reese's AR1 and its logo represent "power, grace, and individuality—everything my brand stands for," but it started as a brand campaign. Reilly and Yess spent "over a year aligning creative, messaging, and rollout timing so it could live across retail, social, and traditional media simultaneously."
To "bring Reebok Basketball back to its rightful place" in basketball alongside Shaq and Allen Iverson in the '90s, Reebok's Osifeso said the brand needed Reese's "energy and dedication." Even with her team's layered strategies for launching the AR1—supplementing its WNBA All-Star on-court debut with an Indianapolis billboard, rolling digital billboards, and a logo-clad street team—Ogbonnaya said that "billboard moments are great," but Reebok's partnership is more valuable in helping Reese build "a brand that can exist and thrive long after the headlines fade."
“She's very much one of one,” Togethxr’s Robertson said. “She's very aware of who she wants to be, what she wants to build, the archetype she wants to become, and it was on us to sit down and map the course of the partnership and how we can help her achieve those goals.”
Expanding the Court
Going into 2026, Reese and her team plan to use their solid gameplan to build a dynasty.
Her Ethos Group partners want to turn more brand deals into multi-year commitments, expand internationally, and continue Reese's work in categories where women's sports hasn't typically ventured.
“I’ve been really proud to build a portfolio that reflects every side of who I am–from fashion and beauty to business and community. But there’s always more I want to do,” Reese said. “I want to keep breaking molds and showing that athletes can be multi-hyphenates–you can lead in sports, business, and culture and don’t need to be put in any one box.”
Part of that next step involves finding new ways to tell her story and others. As she builds a portfolio of brand equity beside her brand partnerships, Reese said an ownership stake in Togethxr seemed like a natural next step toward telling more stories about women's sports alongside partners who've supported her throughout her career.
Togethxr cameras captured Reese on the court after she won her national title with LSU in 2023. The company also recorded a public service announcement with her that year as she issued a non-apology to detractors for being herself. While Togethxr's owners had a long discussion with Reese before bringing her into their group, Togethxr made its case for investment by maintaining a presence throughout Reese's career.
“It's important to cement bigger partnerships with athletes like Angel, but it's also really important to be there from the beginning and storytelling on their way up, because you identify and you see sort of what it is that they represent,” Robertson said. “You understand fundamentally, as you meet Angel, that she doesn't just embody culture, she's moving it forward.”
The Togethxr partnership illustrates exactly why Reese and her team work intentionally with brands that see her for who she is and what she stands for, not just the game she plays.
Ogbonnaya noted that Reese's brand has always been rooted in duality: "fierce competitor and fashion girl, unapologetic and approachable." Through the years, they've ensured that her personality influences conversations during fashion events, promotes access through retail partners, and brings everyone on board.
Among modern athletes, Ogbonnaya sees the transparent, honest connection between brands and athletes as "essential." When athletes don't bring their true selves to partnerships and campaigns, modern audiences see the relationship as transactional. To "win in this new era," athletes must show up as full people with interests, opinions, and purpose just like the fans they're trying to reach. In Reese's case, that means bringing "the glam, the grit, the Baltimore girl who became a global face."
Reese doesn't have to chase relevance because she, her team, and her brand partners did the hard work up front. By forming partnerships that mesh with each other's personalities and grow together, Ogbonnaya says Reese and her team have "built a brand that can exist and thrive long after the headlines fade."
“What Angel has built by Year 2 is the result of long-term thinking,” she said. “Most athletes don’t start talking about equity or ownership until later in their careers, but we wanted her to understand that power early. Her Reebok deal, her investment in Togethxr, the philanthropic work through her foundation, all of that creates a 360° ecosystem that can sustain her for decades.”