How Carson Roney Paved Her Own Way in a Crowded Athlete-Creator Era

Carson Roney was meant to meet me in the Los Angeles hotel where she was staying for NBA All-Star Weekend at 10 AM. She arrived at 9:59 wearing a light sage-gray Adidas tracksuit, the first of at least three outfits she'd wear that day.

I expected Carson to be on time. Not just because of her hectic schedule, but collegiate student-athletes must be punctual; otherwise, they won't survive their respective programs. I figured the 28-year-old Roney knew this because she played two seasons of college basketball at Shawnee State University, an NAIA school in Portsmouth, Ohio.

"Discipline. I’m early to everything," Carson said when asked how being an athlete helped shape her journey creating content. Lessons learned as an athlete remain with someone even after their playing days end.

Not that Carson's playing days are done. Not exactly. She still hoops in celebrity and influencer games, now with brand logos on her jerseys instead of a school name.

Carson has over 5 million TikTok followers and 700,000 Instagram followers. She collaborated with Adidas, Gatorade, PlayStation, Emirates, and the NBA during that All-Star Weekend, and spoke on a panel I would moderate several hours after we met that morning. She's a pioneer of the athlete-to-content-creator pipeline, which is now dominating the NIL landscape and has created a (lucrative) industry in just a few years.

Carson Roney | Izzy Brown (@izzycreatezz)

The transition from performing on a court to performing for a phone is natural in many ways. But that doesn't make it easy, especially because another crop of current and former student-athletes will start posting every year. All of whom possess some degree of discipline, time management, persistence, and mental fortitude that helped Carson reach this point, because those are prerequisites for student-athletes.

It's impossible to say how many current and former student-athlete content creators there are. What's for sure is that over 90,000 student-athletes have reported earnings through Opendorse, a company that connects athletes with businesses. And it has been reported that over two-thirds of NIL deals weren't publicly disclosed on Opendorse until 2025.

With so much competition for eyeballs, discipline isn't enough to set former athletes-turned-influencers apart from their peers. So what can?

Timing can help. Carson began making content at a time when the world was confined to their homes and constrained to their phones.

"COVID hit, and everyone was bored, and I was like, 'Okay, let me start making five to seven videos a day,'" Carson said. "Eventually, one of them blew up and got some views. People were commenting from other countries, and I’m like, 'How the heck did they see this video?'

"So I kept posting, and then a manager reached out to me and was like, 'Hey, just wondering if you’re making money from this. Because if not, you need a manager.' And I was like, 'Making money?' I didn’t even know you could make money from posting TikToks," she added. "No one had really heard of it at that point. You were either a YouTuber or you work a nine-to-five. There was no 'TikTok job.'"

While Carson began making content at her house, donning her Shawnee State basketball jersey in videos upon returning to campus added a whole new layer of intrigue and interest for viewers. A July 2025 Opendorse report revealed that student-athletes have a social media engagement rate that's 3.7 times higher than traditional influencers (5.6% versus 1.9%), largely because of the authenticity, curiosity, and community that collegiate athletics provides. But not all engagement is virtual.

"There was definitely a stigma. My coach would throw jabs at me left and right. Like, 'If you’re on TikTok, you’d be in the gym,'" Carson said.

"I felt weird and uncomfortable at first with teammates because it was so new. People didn’t really understand it. It was like, 'Oh, she’s making a TikTok in the locker room.' And in reality, I’m being paid. This is work. So it was confusing for people. It took some adjusting," she added.

While Carson's timing helped her build a platform, she also faces one distinct disadvantage. Many current athlete creators hail from schools like Ohio State, LSU, USC, or other Power Five universities with gigantic, energized fan bases who crave connection with their student athletes and are enamored with any insider information, so to speak. That essentially automatic follower base is the baseline for creators who hail from those schools.

No shade to Shawnee State. But an NAIA from Portsmouth, Ohio, doesn't have that same sway.

Carson pivoted to full-time content creation shortly after getting a degree in education a year later. When asked whether it was tough to give up on her dream of playing basketball, she said, "Honestly, no. I’m from a very small town. So, not that it wasn’t in my dreams or goals, but it was never a dream of mine because I didn’t know if it was realistic.

"My coach was like, 'You probably could play professionally somewhere.' But once I started doing social media, I realized it would be hard to play professionally and do that full-time. So I needed to pick which one I loved more, basketball or content. And honestly, with content, I can do both."

Carson played in the NBA Creator Cup the night before we met. She admitted in a TikTok that she had "like four airballs" in the game. That may be better content for her audience than if she'd swished four shots.

Discipline and punctuality aren't the only lessons from collegiate athletics that have helped Carson's content journey.

"Basketball taught me to brush things off. Coaches are so hard on you. So social media comments have never gotten to me. I hear people talk about how comments are getting out of hand, and they get really upset, which is a normal reaction. But as an athlete, you become numb to it."

If Carson sees a common thread of negative comments on one of her videos, she'll make another video calling these comments out. It's blunt and unapologetic but also endearing and authentic. All four of which reel viewers back in.

A person's looks factor into their success as a content creator. Yet, just like with student athletes, there are plenty of conventionally attractive people on camera. Appearance isn't enough.

Carson's current focus is on creating content she wants to create, rather than what others expect her to create.

"Success for me used to come through content. Now it’s more personal. I need to make sure what I’m doing is actually what I want to do, not just what people want to see. And I want to post more of my personal life. Before, I was posting a lot of trending audios and stuff. I wasn’t very personal with my audience or supporters. Now I want to get to know the people who support me and give back to them. I’m in a really good headspace with my personal life, so sharing that feels good to me right now," she said.

Carson intends to start a clothing brand "for tall girls" because, being 6'1", it can be a struggle to find clothes that fit. The success of this potential future brand would be at least partially tied to her job as an influencer. Yet, it's impossible to say what the future of content creation looks like as former student-athletes stray farther away from their jersey-wearing days.

How will the volume of these ex-athlete content creators impact the market for those who've been out of the game for longer? Can they sustain their audiences? Or will each day without a jersey wane relevance, especially when more and more athletes are turning to content with their jerseys still on?

Father time is undefeated in an athlete's career. Can the same be said for athletic-adjacent content creation? Nobody knows, because this is such a new industry. But I have some theories.

Carson's followers adore that she'll admit she airballed four shots in an influencer game, will call out wanton comments, and that not all of her videos feel curated or catered to brands. This is surely part of Carson's personality. Yet, leaning into that personality in an authentic and relatable way is easier said than done, given the stakes of being seen as unpredictable to brands.

This balancing act, this juxtaposition, is where success lies in Carson's space. Those life lessons she learned from being a former athlete are perhaps what helped her build a platform. But her unapologetic authenticity is what has allowed her platform to keep growing, what has separated her from the sea of creators who have some combination of looks and a Power Five school backing. And it's what will enable her to keep adding layers and providing value as her journey unfolds.

We're in the Wild West of NIL and sports-adjacent content creation. Nobody knows how the landscape will change in one, five, or ten years. But you can bet on Carson Roney being on time.