Hansel Enmanuel’s NIL potential ‘could be one of the best we’ve seen’

While he already has millions of social media followers, Hansel Enmanuel, a one-armed high school basketball sensation, is only just beginning to see how far his reach — and impact — extends.

A 6-foot-4 combo guard from Kissimmee (Fla.) Life Christian Academy, near Orlando, Enmanuel last week received his third (and most prominent) scholarship offer, this one from coach Penny Hardaway at Memphis. More are likely to come, ensuring that Enmanuel will have the opportunity to play high-level college basketball accompanied with national exposure. 

But that may not be all. Enmanuel, 18, has designs on being the first one-armed player in the NBA, and who at this point would doubt him? The scholarship offers are not a gimmick. Enmanuel can play: Just check out his array of YouTube videos.

He already has authored a powerful inspirational journey after most of his left arm was amputated when he was 6. Playing in his native Dominican Republic, Enmanuel climbed a wall only to have it collapse on him, crushing his arm. He was stuck for two hours. Amputation was the only option.

But his dream of playing pro basketball never has died. And now he is positioned to use the sport as a vehicle to tell a story of remarkable perseverance. He can tell it to an ever-expanding audience that transcends sports. On3 checked in with Dale Hutcherson, a Memphis-area attorney who specializes in sports and trademark law, to talk about what Enmanuel’s NIL potential could be in the Memphis market and beyond. 

“Hansel’s NIL potential in Memphis could be one of the best we’ve seen thus far — locally and nationally,” said Hutcherson, who also is a Memphis law alum, “especially if he can continue in helping bring Memphis back to prominence in the college basketball world.”

Enmanuel’s NIL Valuation impressive

On3 has Enmanuel with a $1.2 million NIL Valuation, the sixth-highest in the NIL 100. The On3 NIL Valuation is an index that looks to set the standard market value for both high school and college-level athletes. The NIL valuation does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date; rather, it rather signifies an athlete’s value at a certain moment in time.

With a population of some 650,000, Memphis is home to large companies such as FedEx, AutoZone and International Paper. It is a tremendously passionate basketball city, full of loyal Tigers fans. Heck, even some players on the Memphis bench during its 2008 run to the national title game (such as Pierre Henderson-Niles) earned a cult following. And above all else, the city exudes grit.

“We take pride in the ‘grit and grind’ mentality, and Hansel embodies that in every way,” Hutcherson said of the city’s NBA team, the Grizzlies, which earned that moniker a few years ago because of their style of play. “In Hansel’s life, he has found a way to figure ‘it’ out despite all the adversity he has faced. … The city [would] embrace him in a Tony Allen or ‘Z-BO’-type fashion [referencing Zach Randolph] because he would likely be one of the faces of the city and the ‘Grit and Grind’ mentality.”

Enmanuel has more than 2.4 million TikTok followers and more than 1.2 million on Instagram. He is among the few high school athletes who are in the same stratosphere with Mikey Williams (3.5 million Instagram followers) and Bronny James (5.4 million TikTok followers) as high school celebrities. And Enmanuel’s social reach will only expand once he steps on a college campus; is able to serve a brand ambassador or influencer, if he so chooses; and appears in games on national TV.

Earlier this month, rapper J Cole featured Enmanuel in a 41-second video for his Dreamer band. Called “The Audacity II,” the video includes Enmanuel hard at work performing a dribbling drill with Cole’s voice saying that people didn’t believe Enmanuel could overcome long odds but he made a believer out of Cole.

“ ‘Now, quietly in the back of their minds, there’s a tiny thought that wonders, ‘How far you can actually go with this?’ ” Cole continued. “And I know something they don’t know. That the answer to that question, my boy, is up to you.”

Enmanuel also has offers from Bethune-Cookman — located in Daytona Beach, about 80 miles from Life Christian Academy’s campus — and Tennessee State. As the scholarship offers continue to come, it’s clear that, regardless of his college choice, Enmanuel will be able to impact an even wider audience with his powerful story of perseverance. And in the NIL age, he will have no shortage of avenues through which to inspire individuals far beyond the sports world. 

As Enmanuel aptly said in an ESPN feature last summer, “I was born to triumph.”