The sports industry and its athletes have expanded their reach to the point of becoming influencers of fashion, lifestyle, fitness, and much more. Athletes can be a great resource to a brand and campaign in their ability to reach and connect with their fans and followers in a way that is hard to rival. In fact, the sports industry and market has been continuously growing, especially in this past decade, and is expected to grow by an additional 6%, reaching nearly $1,809.8 billion by 2022. The industry has grown in a way that has highlighted specific athletes and even enabled them to become household names as fashion and lifestyle icons. Much of this has been achieved through social media where athletes showcase more aspects of their lives and directly connect with their fans. Instagram drove more than $430M in Maximum Ad Value (MAV) during the first 9 months of 2019 with a 68% total value driven by sport properties and influencers.  Sports fans are a passionate consumer group who follow their favorite teams and athletes on various platforms where they see all the brands their favorite athletes associate with on and off the field. This is particularly true for youth because 32% of 13-36-year-olds, and 39% of 13-36-year-old males, follow athletes on social networks.

European soccer has been a positive outlet from the stresses of this past year, and the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament is another opportunity to sponsor some stand-out athletes popular both regionally and internationally. This is the first time that the tournament will be held in more than two countries, with half of the countries hosting an international tournament for the first time. The tournament will also be celebrating its 60th anniversary and projecting that it will have over 5 billion live viewers. So, this is a great opportunity to reach an audience excited to be back in stadiums and engaged with their favorite sport and athletes. 

As of January 2021, TikTok has 73.7 million active users worldwide, and it's just getting started. The app is projected to increase to having almost 90 million users by 2024. With this rapid growth, new users are joining every day to create a fanbase like Charli D’Amelio or enhancing their following like Russel Wilson. TikTok’s algorithm makes it easy for you to go from zero to one million followers in just 24 hours. Videos show up on users’ “For You” pages that closely match their interests based on videos they have previously watched or liked. The app shortly becomes addictive as each video is only 15-60 seconds long, just enough to grab your attention and send you on your way to the next. 

Kamaru Usman

Sydney Leroux

On March 24th 2021, OpenSponsorship held an amazing webinar in celebration of Women's History Month.

Being a professional athlete is undoubtedly a fantastic goal, for it allows people to make a living by working in what they love. It makes individuals tougher and mature faster, for there are multiple different sacrifices that people must make in order to be able to compete at a high level, so there is a lot of responsibility on each athlete. Unfortunately, not everything depends on the athlete. The path to becoming a professional athlete not only requires the athlete to be responsible and to commit seriously but also requires money (training, equipment, coach, travels, hotels, clothing, etc.). Here is when OpenSponsorship, the world's biggest platform connecting brands with athletes, comes along. OpenSponsorship gives the brands the opportunity to promote their products through the more than 8,000 athletes inside the platform and facilitates the athlete's job finding the right sponsor for them. For the brands, not everything is about the good results an athlete may have but how interesting and exposed an athlete is to the world. That is why, with its extensive list of important companies listed in the platform such as ESPN, Levi's, Sperry, as well as hundreds of startups and smaller companies, OpenSponsorship gives just that to an athlete: exposure, personal brand awareness, and multiple opportunities to connect with all kind of brands.

Without getting the proper amount of sleep, an athlete is unable to perform to his or her best ability both physically and mentally. Thus, in order to leverage influencers in your sleep focused campaign, look no further than athlete influencers to promote your brand. Athletes amass large followings on their social media pages that are impressionable and actively engaged. Because they truly understand the importance of sleep, athletes can speak passionately and persuade their audience to purchase a sleep product. Ultimately, creating partnerships with athlete influencers will allow sleep based companies to aggregate a profitable audience.  

Dominic Thiem

    Now more than ever, brands are leveraging influencer marketing to promote their products and maximize their revenue. When brand managers plan influencer marketing campaigns focused on their female consumers, they often select fashion, mommy, beauty bloggers or reality stars. We may be a bit impartial, but we think our roster of 1000+ female athletes are actually the perfect influencer and brand ambassador for your brand. Our female athletes love fashion and beauty, and are mothers, wives, and often come on TV in reality TV shows.