Nicholas Lising-White is a behavioural analyst at Canvas8. With a degree in human geography from UCL, he is interested in the impact of differing cultural conditions on human behaviour. Outside of work, he can be found meandering between cafes on his bike, testing his culinary skills, and intermittently pottering around a rugby pitch.

People are cashing in on their personal brands 

Generation Sell

People want insider status that's community-driven

Inside Track

With World Cups competed for in both women's football and men's rugby, 2023 wasn't short of landmark sporting events. But one of the most talked about phenomena in the world of sports came courtesy of Taylor Swift. Rumours of her romance with the Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce meant their regular season match-up with the New York Jets played host to NBC Sports' largest-ever streaming audience. Meanwhile, viewership among girls aged between 12 and 17 increased by 53%, and sales of Travis Kelce merchandise soared by 400%. 

NBC Sports Press Box

MarketWatch

 Swift's impact was no flash in the pan either. In early 2024, images of her sporting a custom jacket made from Kelce jerseys set the internet ablaze. A 

 by Kristin Juszczyk chronicling the design process has clocked up millions of views.

 the focus on 'entertainment' value over sport itself. Still, this cultural moment indicates that sports fandom is shifting to accommodate the behaviours and tastes of younger audiences. 

Some headline data could be alarming reading for those in the world of sports branding, especially with 2024 being an Olympic year. Fewer sports fans are visiting stadiums, a change driven in large part by Gen Zers – only 17% attend sporting grounds often compared with 49% of those over 70. 

Capgemini

 The reality is that young people are engaging with sports in different ways.

When watching from home, live sports still hold some sway among fans, but it diminishes with age. Among sports fans in the US, 71% say that live sporting events are their favourite sports content type, a figure that reduces to 58% when just looking at Gens Y and Z. Even when people are watching, almost half (44%) of Gen Zers say they engage with others through social media while they take in the game. 

Deloitte

This evolution of sports fandom is typified by the International Olympic Committee's updated media guidelines for athletes ahead of the Paris Games. They will now be permitted to share their experiences of the Olympic Village, training, and competition through personal social media channels. 

International Olympic Committee

 To better understand how this expanding sports media landscape impacts brands and advertisers, Canvas8 spoke to Nataliya Bredikhina, an assistant professor of sport management at the University of Kansas, to unpack her research on the effects of sporting events on athlete social media branding.

Why is this topic important to understand?

Our research on the social media brands of athletes is relevant for a couple of reasons. First of all, we as consumers spend a lot of time on social media, connecting with others and engaging in leisure activities. But we also know that events like the Olympic Games or FIFA World Cups create spikes in athletes' popularity. This combines to create a great space for brands to promote themselves, and right now, athletes are brands themselves because of the social and monetary value tied to their names.

Then, we thought it was important to build on existing studies that have focused on how the athlete brand is impacted by the broader brand system. For example, one previous study established that athletes' personal brands are given extra leverage when they're a part of teams or competing in leagues that also have a strong brand. So we knew that to build a strong brand, you want to be part of a community of other strong brands. We wanted to take our investigation away from the pre-established brand architecture of leagues and teams and look instead within the event context.

The event we chose was the Laver Cup. It's a prominent tennis tournament for elite men's professional tennis players. Significantly, it features a team format – which is very unusual for tennis. Athletes in team sports, like basketball or soccer, have this network of brands and athletes throughout the year because they're a part of a team. But for tennis players, it's a little bit different. They brand themselves as individual athletes throughout the year and then only on a couple of instances do they come together as a team or with a brand. I think this helps to understand the emerging network of brands and think about how that impacts athlete brand growth.

How did you go about conducting your study?

A lot of research on celebrities and athletes focuses on consumer perception using methodologies that require people to self-report on a particular issue or person. In our study, we used social media data to analyse people's behaviours. And I think that's significant too because sometimes people are biased on self-report.

At the athlete level, we looked at the effect of athlete popularity prior to an event and the frequency of their posts. At the event level, we looked at the effect of posting on competition days. Then, at the network level, we looked at the effect of being featured or tagged in the content of other brands with the hypothesis that the denser this network is, the bigger the boost to athletes' brands.

We collected athletes' follower information daily as well as their following coming into the event and after it. We collected and coded their posts – how much they posted, whom they featured and tagged, and how much they were spotlighted in the events' content. We also collected data on the days of the event and the teams that they belong to. So, for the purposes of the analysis, we ran a special type of regression model that allowed us to account for clustered data sets. So we just collected the data and regressed our dependent variable – the change in followings from day to day for each athlete for each day against all of our independent variables.

We set out with a handful of hypotheses, most of which were proven right. We found that athletes' existing followership promoted greater gains in followers throughout an event and that being spotlighted in the posts of other athletes, as well as the event itself would do the same. Conversely, we also found that posts on competition days and increased frequency of posts didn't have the same positive effect.

As for broader takeaways, we know that it's important for brands to optimise follower count and engagement in the run-up to events because this magnifies the spike provided by the event. We also think that these effects can be magnified by a powerful event-wide marketing campaign as well as cooperation among sporting peers. Getting these brand network combinations right to ladder up buzz around an event is more significant than sheer volume of posts.

And I think this point about athlete cooperation is important to highlight again. We're so used to thinking about them as being in competition on the field or court – for consumer attention or competition for sponsorship dollars. But at the same time, it is through collaboration with other athletes that they increase their appeal to fans.

People are growing wary of influencers' role in the marketing of products and the effects this can have on authentic interaction. Among US consumers, 86% say they're more likely to trust brands that use user-generated content (UGC) compared with only 12% who would be likely to purchase a product promoted by an influencer. 

The Drum

 This desire for more honest accounts is also becoming apparent in the world of sports fandom. Shows like 

, while carefully curated, look past the glamour of professional sport in favour of a peak behind the curtain of athletes' lives. Having identified the success of the Kelce brothers' 

 podcast – Spotify's most popular sports podcast – 

 investment in video podcasting for professional athletes gives fans access to their heroes' opinions unimpeded by pressure from their teams or leagues, satisfying desires for more authentic communication. 

Fast Company

Sports fandom and culture are not discrete parts of people’s lives. Esports is a clear example of sports’ increasing overlap with other parts of popular culture, and it represents an opportunity for sports brands to tap into new audiences, with a projected industry CAGR of 21.5% between 2023 and 2030. 

Fortune Business Insights

 Overlapping with fashion could be another opportunity to broaden appeal even further. The presence of ‘

 on TikTok, and the appearance of college football athletes on 

 signal an appetite for insight into the stylistic choices of people’s sporting heroes. Athletes’ 

 indicates their awareness of this phenomenon, too. With 43% of consumers willing to try a co-branded product from a company they already like, seemingly unconventional collaborations like that of 

 can be used to legitimate brands among consumers who may be less familiar. 

PR Newswire

An opportunity to value athletes as people

People find it hard to empathise with the ultra-rich because of the disconnect between their seemingly indulgent lifestyles and everyone else’s reality – particularly amid high inflation. Indeed, over two-thirds of people in Italy, the UK, France, the US, and Croatia feel the economy is rigged to benefit the rich. 

Ipsos

 This, combined with their high profile, means that professional athletes are often subject to abuse online and 

. But as appreciation for the importance of mental health peaks – 93% of people globally agree that mental and physical healthcare are equally important – there’s an opportunity for brands to align their depiction of professionals as real people who play sports for a living with the holistic health rhetoric of their consumers. 

News

 reflects this reality with the slogan ‘There is no charge without recharge’.

Sport has historically functioned as a fulcrum of community and 

 in many places. But globalisation has started eroding the 

 around professional sports teams. This tension creates a challenge for athletes, teams, and brands who must satisfy the needs of both local and global supporters. A shared appreciation for teams’ heritage or particular characteristics of individual athletes should be enough common ground for fans worldwide to meet, but that balance has yet to be perfected. 

 satisfies desires for in-depth engagement, with fans buying and selling voting rights and access to exclusive merchandise. However, Socios’s premise of trading exclusivity doesn’t fit neatly with a society rejecting elitism in favour of more egalitarian ideals. Instead, combining the technology that enables remote engagement on platforms like Socios with the ethos of distributed unity embraced by independent radio stations like 

 can provide a blueprint for community building produced at a local level for more dispersed audiences.

 of Gen Zers say they engage with others through social media while watching live sports

of Gen Zers attend sporting grounds often compared with 

 of US consumers say they're more likely to trust brands that use UGC, compared with only 

 who would be likely to purchase a product promoted by an influencer

By partnering with brands and other athletes, sporting professionals can significantly increase their appeal to fans

Collaborations and co-branding can help sports stars and brands reach and engage previously unfamiliar audiences

Sports fandom is moving away from diehard live event attendance and toward a broader interest in the lives of athletes

is an assistant professor of sport management at the University of Kansas. Her sports branding research spans digital and personal branding, events, and sponsorship, with a special interest in personal brand strategy and brand authenticity.

Global

Behavioural Sciences

Sports

U.S. News

Headlined by the Paris Olympics, 2024 is set to be a big year for sports. With fandom now associated with digital engagement just as much as physical attendance, Canvas8 spoke to Nataliya Bredikhina, an assistant professor of sport management, to unpack the opportunities for brands and marketers.