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One post.

That’s all it took for to get his personal brand off the ground.

It’s the pinnacle of entrepreneurship. One post, one moment, one action. Everyone says to “just start”, but that statement is vast.

For DeAndrea, it was one TikTok post about Jamal Murray’s buzzer-beater in the first round of the 2024 NBA playoffs that kick-started his online presence,��. He wasn’t expecting much, but his start was a surprising success.��

“The video got like 1,000 views and like, I don’t know, 15 likes, and I was like - I was so happy about that… I think 1,000 views for a first video is genuinely incredible.”

And he built on that momentum. As a third-year student in the Leeds School of Business, DeAndrea has already built a larger social presence than millions of aspiring content creators could ever dream of.

This past year, his account skyrocketed from 10K total likes to now amassing 500K. But it took years of grinding to get to that point.

“Content creation kind of dawned on me, I’d say like sophomore, junior year of high school… I created a TikTok account, didn’t post on it. I was so scared to.”

He went from being afraid of posting at all to growing his account 4,900% in a single year.

The exponential growth has given DeAndrea the confidence and opportunity to capitalize. Like all things, there was a large underlying root and motive for his beginning.

An Outspoken Family

For as long as he can remember, DeAndrea has cherished talking about sports. Specifically, his brother, Brooks DeAndrea, heard the most of it. He credits him with the inspiration that started his online presence.

Brooks is forging his own path in politics, something Jackson describes as “unexpectedly entrepreneurial.” It’s a field where personal branding and public presence matter just as much as policy.

Watching that has shaped Jackson more than expected. Seeing his brother confidently articulate what he stands for has pushed him to do the same in sports media. Showing up, speaking clearly, being consistent, taking ownership of his voice are all things Jackson now implements into his daily life, only in an online environment.

Fostering conversation with his brother around sports sparked an idea: to expand the conversation among others. Whether it’s controversy or agreement, he's constantly sparking activity on his page.

“I always try to just put something out there that's going to start a conversation and get people talking… it just starts a conversation between you and the people around you, and between other people that are consuming sports.”

It’s rooted in the idea that “all press is good press”, a backbone concept of sports media. These ideas and actions have been enhanced by DeAndrea’s participation in his sports media minor.

Like all entrepreneurs, DeAndrea has capitalized on his success, but not just by growing his online presence. He’s making a concrete, in-person presence as well. As a statistician for KOA sports, his experiences there have flowed into his online presence, creating a symbiotic ecosystem.

The Mind Behind the Mic

Behind every post is a process that looks far more intentional than most people realize.��

DeAndrea does more than provide in-the-moment reactions. All of his videos involve extensive preparation and studying.��

His giant Excel spreadsheets with predictions for every college basketball team. His outlines for every NFL team and what they bring each week. It’s a fluid framework that makes his videos so successful.

“I did a lot of prep before the season started looking at players I wanted to follow, teams I wanted to follow, storylines… so as the season goes on, there’s just things already in my brain that I see and I’m like, I want to talk about that.”

It ranges anywhere from broad storylines to specific players to track. It’s a level of pre-work uncommon for creators his age, but essential for the volume and quality of content he pushes out.

Part of this discipline comes from understanding the true product of sports media. He knows that entertainment is beyond surface-level humor and drama. The way he captures someone’s curiosity within seconds is the key piece.��

“Rule one of content creation is capturing someone's attention… If you're not getting to a point, like immediately in the video, if you take too long to get to the point, people are going to scroll and they're going to move on.”

But consistency isn’t the end goal. DeAndrea sees content creation as the foundation for something larger. He envisions a future in sports journalism or reporting, using the platform he’s built to springboard into professional storytelling.��

The skills he develops online are the same ones required in the field he hopes to enter, and his current success is only chapter one. Together, they paint the picture of someone who isn’t just posting for fun. He’s building a craft. He’s building a brand. And most importantly, he’s building a path forward.

A Newer Form of Entrepreneurship

As all entrepreneurs understand, entrepreneurship can take place in unlimited forms, and building a personal brand fits right into that category.

“Rather than like, ‘oh, this is my business,’ this is me - Jackson DeAndrea. This is Gotta Talk Sports. What people can grow to know.”

It’s something he’s built from the ground up. It’s not specifically a physical business, creating a physical product. The product in this case is entertainment.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of DeAndrea’s story is his consistency. With millions of different videos on the internet and even more global viewers, it’s essential to maintain stake in a constantly changing environment. His vast knowledge across all sports is what makes his account so appealing.

“That entire NBA and NHL playoffs, I made a video to every single game that happened… and then NFL season rolled around, and I just took it and ran.”

Now, he creates videos not just about game recaps, but also offers different takes and ideas that many people don’t think about. It’s videos that trigger endless emotions: nostalgia, excitement, controversy, agreement, all emotions that tie right back into that idea that “all press is good press”.

“It could be a video I see, or it’s something really funny I stumble across in a game that leads me down a rabbit hole of me researching something… like Seahawks-Cardinals 2016… and I dive into that. There’s so many things in your everyday life that you can just have an angle on or opinion on that you can turn into something.”

Owning the Process

What makes DeAndrea’s journey distinctive isn't just the volume of content. Every post has intentionality, has iteration. Every take is a learning opportunity, every conversation a doorway to something new. His entrepreneurial instinct shows up not in a traditional venture, but the discipline is still extremely present.

What started as one reluctant post has become his own growing media ecosystem. And like all strong entrepreneurs, he treats his brand as a living project, something he refines and elevates every day.

For DeAndrea, sports aren’t just games. They’re stories waiting to be told, conversations waiting to happen, and opportunities waiting to be captured. And he’s only just getting started.