Media companies must embrace the era of athletes as creators
The traditional hierarchy of sports media is being flattened, and athletes are at the center of this shift. For decades, leagues produced the games, broadcasters paid for the rights to air them, and athletes were the “talent” showcased within those rigid ecosystems. Athletes could make extra money by appearing in commercials, but they had only rare opportunities to create their own content.
The media landscape surrounding this year’s Super Bowl and the cycle of international competition at the Winter Olympics makes it clear that hierarchy doesn’t hold. Top players are no longer just participants in the league’s story. They are the authors, distributors, and primary beneficiaries of their own media empires.
For media companies and rights holders, this should be seen as an opportunity to expand deeper into other channels, like social media, to get more personal with audiences and to deliver engagement for brands. To capture this value, however, the industry must rethink how it sells, positions, and monetizes content across a fragmented, multichannel world.
The Super Bowl as a proving ground
The Super Bowl today serves as the annual proving ground for athlete-owned content. While the linear broadcast remains the crown jewel, a parallel economy plays out on adjacent content from gaming to social platforms and even other broadcast networks. Athletes are utilizing the weeks leading up to the Big Game to launch behind-the-scenes docuseries, livestreamed podcasts, and real-time social commentary that attracts blue-chip advertisers who may be priced out of a $7 million, 30-second TV spot, or want to stretch their investment in new ways.
Consider NFL stars such as Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill. Kelce, through his New Heights platform, has transformed from a star tight end into a global media personality. His show doesn’t just provide “sports talk”; it provides a lifestyle gateway for brands that range from traditional CPG to high-end fashion. Tyreek Hill’s Soul Runner brand and his YouTube and social presence allow him to speak directly to a Gen Z audience.
For a media company, the opportunity here isn’t just to sell a commercial break during the game. It is to create a distributed advertising model. A broadcaster can sell a primary sponsorship in an ad pod, but they must also provide ways for that brand to follow the athlete into their individual channels. By creating co-branded “social extensions” or integrating athlete-led segments into the official broadcast, rights holders can capture a larger share of the advertiser’s total wallet. This often means collaborating directly with leagues and their athletes, an approach that is still being tested and developed.
Beyond the field: The Olympic momentum
The Winter Olympics is full of individual athletes, which will create a surge in athlete-brand partnerships that extend well beyond appearances in commercials. Olympic athletes often live in a unique media cycle with peak visibility for two weeks, followed by a long tail of individual brand building, but with social media and long-tail streaming content, they can easily create months or even years of exposure.
Media companies can take advantage of this by shifting their inventory planning from “event-based” to “narrative-based.” After the Winter Games, fans remain invested in the personal journeys of the athletes and become fans of the Games. Rights holders should be looking to partner with these athletes to host exclusive digital series or have them star in new content that can be sold to advertisers as a continuous engagement play. This allows broadcasters to maintain high CPMs long after the closing ceremony by leveraging the athlete’s personal distribution network to drive viewers back to the broadcaster’s owned platforms.