Sabino High School, UA grad David Artzi helping athletes build brands during pandemic

Growing up on Tucson’s east side, David Artzi — like many kids his age — dreamed of playing in the NFL.

Artzi had a deep passion for football and sports in general. He attended Arizona Wildcats basketball games with his parents, plastered his walls with posters from Sports Illustrated and collected trading cards of his favorite players.

Artzi has taken all that he learned as a young sports fan and transformed it into a Tucson-based business, DA Athlete Marketing, that allows him to work with NFL and NBA players on a daily basis. His work in player branding and marketing parallels one of his favorite activities from when he was a kid.

“I traded sports cards when I was little, and you have to sell them when they’re hot,” Artzi said. “Now, I feel like players are like stock sometime. If they have a good game, stock is high and hot; I try to capitalize on that.”

Artzi, 27, took advantage of a golden opportunity in January, when Levi Wallace — a Tucson High grad playing for the Buffalo Bills — advanced to the AFC championship game. Of the 30 or so athletes Artzi represents, Wallace is the only one who also hails from Tucson.

“When I tell people I live in Tucson, they say it’s an awful market for sports, unless you’re a golfer or Wildcats fan, and Phoenix is a baseball town,” Artzi said. “But Tucson is up-and-coming in terms of talent, and now we’re going to see that even more.”

Artzi and Wallace didn’t know each other, but Artzi knew that he could use their shared Tucson roots to both his and Wallace’s advantage.

Wallace was repped by a large agency that does individualized marketing, but has close to 100 clients.

"You can’t do individualized marketing for 90 clients,” Artzi said. “I knew Tucson and I knew I have to get this guy because I could do stuff with him, and no one else from Tucson is out there doing stuff. So I reached out, and it was very easy from that perspective.”

Landing Wallace might have been easy, but the road to building DA Athlete Marketing into the business it is today has been slow. Artzi started out wanting to be an agent.

“So many people say that when they’re little and in high school and college, and now I say, ‘Talk to me in five years,’” Artzi said.

Artzi went to high school at Sabino and made his Wildcats-loving mother’s dreams come true by attending the University of Arizona.

“It was like a drug addiction to basketball,” Artzi said of his mom’s side of the family, who all grew up in Tucson. “Salim Stoudamire, Luke Walton, Andre Iguodala were my childhood. Football was my passion, too. I was a massive Chargers fan, so I loved Drew Brees and (LaDainian Tomlinson) and Antonio Gates.”

By the time he got to the UA, Artzi was all-in on the idea of a career in sports. Instead of going abroad his junior year, he did an internship in Indiana during the Final Four.

“I was watching Wisconsin arrive at Lucas Oil Stadium from my apartment,” Artzi said.

Artzi earned his bachelor’s degree in sports and society in 2016, then moved to Houston for an internship with a large agency. He then knew what he didn’t want to do in life — work as a traditional, on-field agent.

“It’s brutal and cutthroat, and my personality didn’t fit that mold. Agents can make a lot of money, but I didn’t have that shark-type mentality,” Artzi said. “I chose not to be an agent because I’m not that type of person with the ‘Jerry Maguire’ personality, but I love being a friend to the players.”

Artzi went into branding, which he called “more of a climb in terms of financial success.” He returned to Tucson, moved back in with his parents and enrolled in American University in 2017 to earn an online master’s in sports analytics and management.

It was there that DA Athlete Marketing was born.

Artzi’s job as a marketing manager is to connect his clients with brands, products and people that they can relate to. He scored 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk an endorsement deal with Hint Water leading up to the Super Bowl last year, hooked up Chargers running back Austin Ekeler with his own bobblehead and brought Wallace back to Tucson last year for a signing at Showtime Sports.

Artzi said Wallace’s dream is to get something with Eegee’s, but since the Tucson-based chain starting going more corporate in recent years, that’s become more of a tough sell.

His other marketing clients include Jazz forward Georges Niang, Chiefs defensive back L’Jarius Sneed and Eagles running back Boston Scott.

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“With marketing, the main thing for me is getting them endorsements, social media marketing deals and appearances, like card signings,” Artzi said. “It definitely hurt money-wise this year, as a lot of what I do is commission. So it doesn’t hurt the players much from that perspective.”

“It was kind of a school project. Create your own website for an agency, and it went from there,” Artzi said. “This industry is 99% connections, and once you’re in, you’re in. It can be a good and a bad thing.”

Artzi called it a “small, big industry,” in terms of the relationships that everything seems to revolve around.

He now relies heavily on word of mouth to recruit new clients.

But when he first started?

“I would just DM someone,” Artzi said.

Artzi signed Jarius Wright, who was playing for the Vikings, that way nearly five years ago.

“He said, ‘Try to get me free products and see what you can do.’ That gave me my first hands-on experience,” Artzi said. “Today it’s harder, because now they’re getting DMs from everybody.”

While the pandemic has been hard for both Artzi and his clients, he said the increased downtime has given many of his players the opportunity to explore other opportunities.

Ekeler started his own Twitch account in 2020, and several of Artzi’s other clients have started their own YouTube channels.

“It’s so important to find your passions and find a way to brand yourself outside the game, and this time did give many players an opportunity to find that niche,” Artzi said. “Whether it’s podcasting about college experiences or interests, it’s important. Your football career is only going to last three or four years, but branding lasts forever.”

Prior to the pandemic, Artzi split his time between Tucson and Chicago, traveling all over for work and renting Airbnbs by the month. He’s spent much of the past year working out of his parents’ home, but this week, he’s in Dallas.

“I like exploring, I’m a hard-to-settle type of guy,” Artzi said. “But I’m a very regimented person, which is ironic because no two days are the same.”

These days, he seeks out clients who are already established in the league, saying it helps to keep his overhead down.

“Three years in a row, I recruited kids out of college, but I don’t have money I can give these kids,” Artzi said. “If you want to get somebody, you have to pay somebody, and the way I do that is to give them a marketing guarantee.”

Veteran players who don’t need money up front. Artzi instead guarantees them a certain dollar amount in endorsements in a set amount of time.

“I like connecting my guys’ passions with what they love, both products and companies,” Artzi said. “I get them paid, but I educate them, too, about branding.”

Artzi said he’s not sure what the endgame is for him, but at this point, it’s all about building the connections he needs to thrive in the industry.

“If it weren’t for my parents, I’d be in a tough situation,” he said. “But I think and hope it’ll pay off. And if not, I can apply for a job at an actual agency.”

For now, Artzi has a few other dreams — including one that would make his Wildcats-crazy mom especially proud.

“I would definitely love to work with some UA basketball guys. I know of some agencies that work with UA players, including Josh Green and Nico Mannion,” Artzi said. “That’s definitely something that’s still on my goal list.”