In a region where sports thrive and athletes prosper, the Central Valley was missing one thing: an outlet for elite basketball competition in the summer, especially for athletes aspiring to play at the college or professional level or those who simply love the game. The Fresno Pro-Am changed that.
Alton Williams, president and co-founder of the Fresno Pro-Am, launched the league along with co-founders Seth and Ryan Stanley in 2021, answering the call for high-level basketball the area and its local talent had long been eager for.
As participants continued to showcase their talent each year and tailor their summers and offseason programs around the Fresno Pro-Am, it became clear to Williams that it was time to shift focus to getting eyes on the league, leading to the launch of the Fresno Pro-Am Show.
With the Fresno Pro-Am Show, Williams views the league’s extension as a storytelling avenue to elevate and share the culture of Central Valley basketball with a wider audience through full length episodes on YouTube and snippets shared across social media platforms.
“The mission of the show is to entertain, inform, and inspire people in communities through the power of engaging storytelling, that is the mission, so everything you see will be in alignment with that mission,” Williams said.
Often called show business, the sport of basketball has limitless story lines, from the overseas pro who can’t put the ball down to the first-year college player looking to make a name for himself. All of it will be front and center in the Fresno Pro-Am Show.
And in the Central Valley, those kinds of stories aren’t rare, it’s all a part of the Valley’s identity. With homegrown talent like Jalen Green, Cedric Coward, Robin and Brook Lopez, along with diamonds in the rough from Fresno State like Derek Carr, Davante Adams, Aaron Judge, and Paul George, what’s stopping the Fresno Pro-Am from sharing the next big headline of the Central Valley?
“There’s so much people don’t know—especially those who don’t live in this region—and we want to reflect that. We want to deliver that to the world,” Williams said. “Basketball is a global sport, so we want to deliver this to the global community in a way that’s well received and in a way that’s digestible, relatable, and engaging.”
Williams also emphasized the role of storytelling in driving fan engagement, noting that it remains a challenge across the broader basketball community.
Williams localized the issue to Fresno State’s men’s basketball team and the school’s transition into the Pac-12.
With nuances like NIL (name, image, and likeness) and the transfer portal, it can be difficult for fans to connect with players as they explore new paths. And for a school with limited funds, like Fresno State, it can be challenging to attract high-level talent and compete with talented teams.
In order to sell tickets and get fans involved, Williams believes fans need personal ties with players.
“Fans have to understand who these young men are, and a lot of that revolves around storytelling and sharing their stories, their backgrounds, their interests, and showing how they’re relatable to fans,” Williams said.
Turning to the future, he extended these ideas to the Fresno Pro-Am, highlighting the league’s ongoing growth.
“There’s a big problem when it comes to telling stories in the basketball community that I’m interested in tackling,” Williams said. “I want to make sure for the next five years we build a much larger fanbase, and we build a large audience. I’m not even looking in our own backyard, when it comes to cultural storytelling, I want to share these stories with the world.”
The Fresno Pro-Am Show is set to launch this summer, with more details to come.
Story and cover photo courtesy of Vincent Ordonio.