Summer of Sport: How creators are integral to your marketing plan.

For those of you that joined us at the MAD//Fest panel discussion this year, you’ll know we got ushered off stage halfway through our questions (chatty, moi?!). So as requested – here we are. I’ve caught up with all my amazing panel guests and continued the grilling off-stage – so here’s all the questions and answers I didn’t get a chance to ask at the time.

If you found this mid-scroll and weren’t there, here’s the TL:DR. I hosted a panel recently called ‘Summer of Sport: How creators are integral to your marketing plan.’ We talked about how the way we consume sport has changed and the way we access athletes, has changed.

We are in THE summer of sport; The Euros, Wimbledon, Olympics, Paralympics, Tour De France, and so many more. And this summer the social noise around the events will be just as important as the events themselves. How an athlete connects with fans online is as important as how they perform on the day. Because like it or not, athletes are influencers now. In the sports space and way beyond.

So, MAD//Fest gave me the chance to pull together an epic line up. We had…

Ben McLaughlin, COO of Boxpark

Ellie Cross, Senior Marketing Manager at Starling Bank

Hayden Clottey, Head Of Sport / Talent Manager at Alpha Talent Group

First up, as a Man City fan it felt apt to talk about Manchester City winning the league (again). One of the things I found most fascinating is that through organic social media, three videos alone received 270m+ views over the weekend, after the win. My personal fave? Grealish’s failed attempt to let off a confetti cannon.

What I find wilder is that over half of Gen Z globally, have never attended a live sporting event but are watching and engaging in bitesize content through social.

It shows the emotion and excitement of fandom and how fans want to take that with them outside of the game’s grounds. Now that the game has changed – clubs and athletes need to find new ways to connect with their fans and bring them in.  

Boxpark is a business that has such strong affinity with sport. So much happens outside of those 90 minutes. When grilling Ben on the strategy behind how they entertain and drive footfall, he said “Our fundamental belief is that people need to feel special. Sport is something that will always bring people together and so we do everything in our power to amplify those moments and create memorable experiences which go hand in hand with the game. That might be adding an athlete pundit, a sing-a-long celebrity or content creator reacting to the games – but ultimately the collective spirit and excitement is something that connects with people all over. And this is the content that will more often than not deliver greater engagement than the main event.”  

“To your point Sedge on Gen Z not attending live sporting events” – Hayden added – “if you take football as a whole ticket prices and subscriptions are going up. Football isn’t as accessible anymore by traditional means. What athletes and creators allow us are different avenues into the sport – through fashion, music and of course, the content that’s consumed online. Behind the scenes, challenges, reactions, fan conversations –  through social media, we’re offering fans alternative way to access the games we love which is enhancing the breadth of opportunities for brands to be present around a specific sport.”

You cannot talk about sport, and not talk about the rise of women in sport. Everything is on the rise. Basketball viewership is up 49%, Football 45%. And according to FiFa, 29m Women/Girls currently participate in football and they predict that will double by 2026.

Female athletes play a huge role within the broader influencer approach – they have hugely powerful fanbases, and stories to tell. Starling Bank has really owned its relationship with women in sport, most notably within football. Ellie talked through what she’s seen and how she’s seen it change through empowering female athletes.

“These women are magnetic on and off the pitch. Their audiences are growing and it’s not just about supercharged fans anymore. For Lioness Jill Scott, appearing on sky.com's ‘The Overlap on Tour’ is how a lot of men will get to know her – and the women’s game. But there’s other new fans too. Mary Earps is killing it on TikTok and Ella Toone’s YouTube vlogs ‘Hello Nan are you there’ are classic. But, this is just the beginning, there’s so much more to do in the space.”

I asked Hayden, why he thinks female athletes don’t get the same airtime and pay checks in campaigns as male athletes? And if he could explain a little bit about their rates, how they’re vetted compared to their male counterparts?

He explained “Thankfully, this is beginning to change for the better – through the work of people like Ellie in massive organisations like Starling and through the creativity and passion of women on the front lines in sport like Nancy Baker. 

Like with creators more generally, rates and airtime can sometimes fall on its sword as a result of skewed demographics. A woman in tennis for example that might have a 70% male following might not find it super straightforward to land a beauty campaign designed to sell” says Hayden. “I’ve had instances when negotiating my female talent where the brand has tried to beholden us to a lower rate on account of perhaps that creator not having X amount of followers when in actual fact, their audience is primed for the type of activation they want along with the engagement and genuine proximity to the sport. So that can be quite frustrating. Subsequently, you do still get brands that want to tick a box and populate campaigns with say 1x woman and 1x man and I’m always very quick to get under the skin of the objective and what has prompted the selection. 

“Yes!” agreed Ellie. “For any brand working with athletes – purpose is key. How are you authenticity connecting? Starling is the only bank in the UK founded by a woman. Through our partnerships, we're able to disrupt industries traditionally dominated by men. For us it's less about the on-the-pitch action, and more about the off-the-pitch story.”

“For us at Boxpark”, Ben added, “there has been an exponential rise in female audiences, in no small part due to the phenomenal success of the Lionesses in recent years . But also the appetite to engage with some amazing role models who are breaking ground in driving equality in sport forward. We hosted a series of events as part of our ‘Women Who Play’ campaign with legends like Rachel Yankie, Jo Tongue & Iqra Ismail, to highlight some of their phenomenal achievements. While there is momentum, we need the media, brands and partners to continue moving in the right direction. We are proud to see full venues for Euros finals of both the Men’s and Women’s games. Sponsors that see that and want to support it, the likes of Starling bank putting their name to major campaigns really makes a difference. They see the potential to bring more people together and engage with them, but we all need to stay the course and be ambassadors ourselves.” 

So, my takeaways from this brilliant chat (and from our Q&A in overtime!)?

💥When it comes to working with creators that are athletes, content needs to be really well planned. And partnerships need to be long-term to really support them.  

 💥On our side, we need to educate clients and agencies on the incomparable value of female athletes. And how the same KPIs don’t always work for them.

💥New sports and newly-popular women’s sports bring together new and existing audiences. We need to think about how to speak to and entertain these different groups on social, on game day and long-term.

I really feel like that we set the world to right there. It was great to pick the brains of some of the best in the business. Thank you all for joining us at Mad//Fest and for following our conversation on here afterwards too!