Ron Watts

Ronald Michael Watts (May 21, 1943 – November 2, 2022) was an American professional basketball player.

A 6'6" small forward from Wake Forest University, Watts played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for two seasons (1965–67) as a member of the Boston Celtics.

After his career with the Celtics, he was featured in a series of Clio-award-winning commercials for AT&T with his good friend Bill Russell. The commercials showed Watts and Russell cracking jokes at each other's expense, and helped to launch AT&T's long-distance telephone service. Watts found fame with this commercial and its success was parlayed into the WATS line, standing for "Wide Area Telecommunications Service", which was AT&T's corporate offering for businesses. When AT&T was the largest company in the world, the revenue from the WATS line alone would have made it the eighth largest corporation in the world. However, this was before celebrities were highly compensated for endorsement deals and Watts received no profit share.

Watts died on November 2, 2022, at the age of 79.

Source