Phoenix hat shop picked for ESPN initiative that supports Black-owned businesses
The Phoenix Suns might not have made it to the NBA Finals this year, but a Phoenix-based business will get some high-value exposure during the basketball championship series.
Straw & Wool, a downtown Phoenix-based hat store, was chosen as one of four companies in ESPN’s 2023 Champion Black Businesses initiative. The program, which was started in 2020, uses entities across the Walt Disney Co. family to highlight and mentor these Black-owned businesses and their owners.
M. Ali Nervis and Henry Dickerson, the owners of Straw & Wool, told the Business Journal that they have already conducted a series of interviews for ESPN and had a one-on-one coaching session with billionaire Mark Cuban from ABC’s "Shark Tank," just ahead of the NBA Finals that got underway on June 1.
The interviews will be part of a series of stories about the initiative and the chosen businesses that will appear across ESPN’s digital, TV and social platforms during the NBA Finals, which continue on June 7 with Game 3. Nervis also said ESPN was separately producing a commercial for the store.
