Known Originals Taps Basketball Royalty to Debut New Content Division

For more than four decades, McDonald’s has sponsored a spring basketball tournament that brings together the cream of the crop from high schools around the country for head-to-head matchups, three-point contests and skill drills.

Featuring stellar young athletes in their formative years—the lineup has included LeBron James, Candace Parker, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and A’ja Wilson, to name only a few—the McDonald’s All American Games have provided an early peek into greatness in the making.

Hardcore sports fans may be familiar with the annual event, along with its fundraising and giveback efforts, but the general public likely isn’t. That could change with a documentary series now in production and headed to Prime Video.

It’s one of the upcoming projects from Known Originals, a new division of marketing agency Known, which plans to unearth other diamonds in the rough as springboards for entertainment content that’s intended to be brand-backed but not brand-saturated.

“We’re going to help brands identify untold or under-leveraged stories and put them on a broad canvas,” Brad Roth, president of Known Originals and co-founder of Known, told Adweek. “It could be specific IP they own or something they have a deep association with that’s meaningful to their consumers or culture at large.”

Known Originals, partnering with Roc Nation and Creative Control for the unscripted McDonald’s All American Games, has a number of projects already in development with Universal Music Group and Toys “R” Us. There’s also a three-project commitment from Time Studios, which serves as a follow-up to the co-collaborators’ award-winning docuseries Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space that aired on Netflix in 2021.

More substance, less transaction

Known Originals, based in Los Angeles, aims to feed a marketing need to break out of traditional advertising channels with more substantive, less transactional content. 

The group’s projects aren’t intended to “function like an ad unit, and they’re not deliverables as part of a campaign,” Roth said. “They’re longer stories that can create a deeper connection with audiences.”

Along with Inspiration4, which has its roots in a Super Bowl ad, Known has a track record that includes Hulu’s first aftershow, One Burning Question, a companion to The Handmaid’s Tale; Netflix’s Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy; and the Future Legends of Advertising podcast with iHeartMedia.

With the formal debut of Known Originals, Roth and his team will tap into Known’s existing brand clients for potential TV and film projects while also casting a wider net into other companies. (The flagship Known agency, with multiple Emmys and Cannes Lions on its mantle, counts Audible, Shake Shack, Rockefeller Center and Warner Bros. Discovery among its brand stable.)

The new division, drawing from Known’s data and analytics resources for consumer insights and research, plans to produce content across reality and scripted genres.

The move is another example of how agencies are stretching beyond the established boundaries of their advertising functions, increasingly creating their own brands, developing purpose-based products and expanding their in-house creative studios.

Roundball and Geoffrey

Known Originals has three in-the-works series and specials for Toys “R” Us, which will be “steeped in the idea of play,” Roth said. The projects may draw from this summer’s experiential activation from the brand called Geoffrey’s Tour Across America, and the well-known mascot could make an appearance.

For the McDonald’s All American Games project, Known Originals has sifted through a treasure trove of footage, images, audio and other assets sitting in the global fast food giant’s archives. 

Trivia: There’s at least one alum from the tournament on every current NBA and WNBA roster, and many of those players could add new interviews and commentary for the series.

“We can look back over nearly five decades and show how culturally important this game has been,” Roth said. “And also to see the profound impact it had on the players—it was incredibly transformative for them.”

The potential cast of characters reads like a who’s who of the game past and present, from Magic Johnson and Maya Moore to Bronny James and Ashlyn Watkins. (Women were added to the event in 2002.)

The brand exposure will be “organic” rather than overt, Roth said, with the McDonald’s logo appearing on uniforms and courts as it has since the event started in 1977.

“The point is to tell the rich history in an unvarnished way,” Roth said. “It’s brand-inspired, but it’s not branded content.”