The Real March Madness Is the Corporate Race to Ink Viral Stars

Two years ago, during the first round of the men’s college basketball national championship, Jack Gohlke of Oakland University in Michigan became an overnight sensation. Gohlke, a 6-foot-3 guard from suburban Milwaukee who looks, as one teammate put it, like a “high school history teacher,” came off the bench and hit ten 3-pointers in an upset win over the University of Kentucky. The spectacular shooting performance, combined with Gohlke’s everyman appearance, made him a viral folk hero, with fans online trading quips about the “future insurance salesman” with the “hairline of a man twice his age” who had taken down a blue blood program. It was a textbook example of why the tournament is known as March Madness.

For Gohlke, the madness was only beginning. After the game, his teammates told him he should probably check his phone. His Instagram account, which began the day with about a thousand followers, was adding thousands by the hour. Hundreds of messages were pouring in from friends and family offering congratulations, and from brands offering sponsorship deals. “It was just too crazy for me to handle,” Gohlke says. “I was not prepared for anything like that.”