PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE DETROIT PISTONS
Glass basketball trophies etched with the Detroit Shock logo glistened on a table at center court inside Little Caesars Arena as a beaming Alicia Jeffreys stood beside them.
It was March 2023, and the 20th anniversary of the Shock’s WNBA championship was being celebrated during halftime of a Detroit Pistons game.
Jeffreys (maiden name Valdez), a Flint native, was reveling in reliving one of the early highlights of her accomplished tenure in the organization’s marketing department, which began in 2002.
Making the moment even more memorable for Jeffreys was the Flint area’s connection to the first of the Shock’s three titles, as she greeted reuniting staff members, coaches, and players, presenting a trophy to each of them.
Among those Jeffreys embraced were former Shock assistant coaches and Flint basketball legends Pam McGee (Flint Northern) and Laurie Byrd (Hamady), along with Shock great Deanna Nolan (Northern), a five-time WNBA All-Star, and former player Stacey Thomas (Flint Southwestern).
Less than six months later, Jeffreys was promoted for the seventh time to her current position of Detroit Pistons Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, overseeing the department’s 55 employees.
Jeffreys is tempted to draw a deep breath before describing her duties. The role encompasses a wide range of responsibilities.
“Overall, my job is to be a consistent advocate for the Pistons brand, broadening it while showcasing the brand in the best light possible,” she said. “A big goal lately has been working on bringing Detroit basketball to a global stage through constant storytelling on all our platforms, which is super important from a revenue standpoint and for the reach of the brand. We work to keep the Pistons brand culturally relevant, making sure we are telling the organization’s story on and off the court.”
More specifically, she spearheads the launch of communication and marketing campaigns, cultivates strategic collaborations, leads other revenue-driving efforts, oversees the organization’s social media impact, and focuses on enhancing fan experience through theme nights, giveaways, and marquee events.
Another focus is finding ways for Pistons content to appear in the algorithms of younger fans and new fans.
“We have a strong growth mindset, starting with providing fans with a complete game experience, which continues as they buy tickets for future games and spread the word about how positive their experience was,” said Jeffreys, who was named to the 2023 Crain’s Detroit Business Notable Leaders in Marketing list. “We are always looking to drive sustainable energy about our brand and find ways to future-proof it with long-term strategies.”
In 2025 alone, the team’s marketing division generated 3,000 pieces of content, including 1,600 videos across various platforms. All that content creation, combined with other functions, means some hectic weeks for Jeffreys’ department during the season—but they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Coach J.B. (Bickerstaff) said in a press conference that the team plays with controlled chaos on the court, and in some ways, it’s exactly the same with our team during the course of a season,” she said. “Sometimes, we are planning as many as four game-night experiences in a single week in addition to our overall content creation to build excitement around what’s happening with the team. We create and bounce ideas off each other daily.”
Pistons Chief People Officer Nicolet Lewis, who has worked with Jeffreys since 2019, is among those who appreciate her approach.
“Overall, my job is to be a consistent advocate for the Pistons brand, broadening it while showcasing the brand in the best light possible.”
Alicia Jeffreys
“Alicia is an invaluable leader within the organization and a driving force behind how our brand shows up locally, nationally, and globally,” Lewis said. “Her strategic vision, creativity, and deep understanding of both basketball culture and business make her impact felt across every department she touches. Alicia has a rare ability to think big while caring deeply about the details that bring ideas to life.”
Jeffreys has had a hand in countless Pistons marketing campaigns, including one of the most famous in franchise history — Goin’ to Work — which captured the identity of Pistons teams that reached at least the Eastern Conference Finals for seven straight seasons (2002–08) and won the 2004 NBA Championship.
Here, Alicia Jeffreys poses with rapper Big Sean, who is also the Pistons’ Creative Director of Global Experience.
“Big Sean is so humble and easy to work with, whether it’s curating music for events or working on a new clothing line from start to finish.”
Alicia Jeffreys
“Goin’ to Work is a campaign with incredible longevity, and I’m so proud to have been a part of it,” Jeffreys reflected. “The great thing is that nothing about it was forced. It was organically created and owned by the players because they naturally loved it and weren’t just following a directive. Fans, of course, really embraced it as well.”
A current campaign Jeffreys and her team are developing centers around longtime public address announcer John Mason’s signature “Deee-troit Basketball” call.
“We are digging into what Detroit Basketball actually means to fans,” she said. “How do we lean into what people think of when they think of Detroit Basketball?”
Among the colleagues Jeffreys treasures working with is multi-platinum, Detroit-born rapper Big Sean, who joined the Pistons in 2020 as Creative Director of Innovation and was recently promoted to Creative Director for Global Experience.
“Big Sean has always been such a friend of the franchise,” Jeffreys said. “We started having conversations with him and loved how he is such an outside-the-box thinker, so he came on board. He has always reached people through creative storytelling, and that’s what he’s passionately doing for us. Big Sean is so humble and easy to work with, whether it’s curating music for events or working on a new clothing line from start to finish.”
Big Sean also narrated the Pistons’ Different by Design video, which told the story of a community reconnecting with its team and won a 2023 Michigan Regional Emmy in the Commercial Single Spot category.
Jeffreys and her team won the same category a year later for their Always Detroit Basketball video campaign featuring Detroit fashion designer Ty Mopkins.
In 2022, the Pistons earned the NBA’s Team Partnership of the Year Award for a collaboration with Shopify, an e-commerce company that operates a retail point-of-sale platform, to launch SHOP313—a program providing local entrepreneurs with complimentary access to the platform.
Jeffreys’ department also received the first-ever NBA Team Marketing Campaign of the Year Award in 2016 for Detroit Basketball, which focused on community, pride, and unity.
Jeffreys played soccer and competed on the boys golf team at Flint Northern (the school did not offer a girls golf program) before graduating in 1998. She also was a competitive gymnast from ages 5 to 15.
She experienced a glimpse of her future while assisting Northern’s athletic director during home basketball games.
“Doing that, along with watching all the amazing basketball players who came out of Flint during the 1990s, cemented my love for the sport and for promoting it,” she said.
At 5 feet tall, Jeffreys realized her competitive athletic career would not extend beyond high school. She enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Sport Management and Communication program and eventually earned a master’s degree in the field. Beyond the classroom, she worked at Michigan’s Yost Ice Arena and completed summer internships with the PGA Tour, Atlanta Braves, and Atlanta Falcons.
Not long after earning her master’s degree in 2002, Jeffreys was offered a grassroots marketing position with the Pistons by the late team executive Greg Myford.
“I met Greg during a campus event, and he asked for my resume to consider me for open positions, but I never thought I would be hired,” Jeffreys said. “At that time, not many women were hired into marketing roles with major sports teams right out of college, so I have to give Greg a ton of credit for having faith in me.”
Jeffreys initially focused on the organization’s Detroit Fury Arena Football team before contributing to marketing efforts for the Shock’s first championship and the Pistons’ 2004 NBA title.
“That 2004 season was such an amazing experience as I focused on the physical fan experience—from the moment fans stepped into the arena, designing playoff signage and determining concourse activities,” she said.
The fun truly began after Detroit dispatched the favored Los Angeles Lakers in five games for its first title since 1990.
“I was part of a group tasked with determining the size, building out, and designing every float in the championship parade,” she said. “It was very cool to see them on display in front of thousands of people.”
Jeffreys continued her rise within the organization over the next four years and married her husband, Darrell, in early 2008. Life appeared perfect—until it wasn’t.
Jeffreys began experiencing pain at work, initially attributing it to wear and tear from her decade as a gymnast. She underwent surgery to remove what she believed was a benign cyst near her tailbone. However, pathology results revealed she had chordoma, a rare form of cancer affecting only about 300 people per year in the United States. She had celebrated her 28th birthday the day before.
Her situation grew even more complicated when a family friend referred her to an expert chordoma team at Massachusetts General Hospital. Doctors discovered the cancer was present in three locations along her spinal cord.
Jeffreys embarked on a three-year battle, undergoing seven surgeries and 116 radiation treatments, while continuing to work in whatever capacity she could.
In 2011, she was declared cancer-free.
“The cancer was a complete shock, coming as my career was taking off and I was newly married,” she said. “I was ready for my next goal of becoming a mom and wasn’t going to let the diagnosis stop me from achieving that. I received so much support from the organization during the entire time, and Shock players even sent me gifts.”
In 2012, Jeffreys welcomed twin daughters Mikayla and Kaia—the same year she received an NBA Game Changer Award for her commitment to the values of the Pistons organization and the NBA.
In 2017, the Jeffreys family was blessed with another set of twin daughters—Ava and Amaya.
Jeffreys’ 24th season with the organization has been among the most thrilling, with the Pistons leading the Eastern Conference by 5.5 games and boasting the second-best record in the NBA (36–12) as of early February.
“I’m so happy for my team, seeing all of their hard work result in a great experience at our games,” she said. “But the stakes are higher from a marketing standpoint because more people are watching us now. We have to continue telling great stories, keep people engaged, and focus on building the best home-court advantage for the playoffs. Just getting that first playoff win at Little Caesars will be amazing.”
Jeffreys is also excited about another Shock reunion as the organization marks the 20th anniversary of the team’s 2006 championship on March 7.
Lewis is equally excited to continue working with her close friend and valued colleague.
“Working with Alicia makes you better—she challenges you, supports you, and inspires you to think differently,” Lewis said. “The Detroit Pistons are stronger because of her leadership, and her value to the organization cannot be overstated.”
