The line between athlete and influencer is evaporating as more advertising dollars flow into sports, creator marketing, and into the U.S. name, image and likeness (NIL) cottage industry that straddles both worlds.
Agency holding groups are paying close attention. Japanese agency group Dentsu struck a deal with MOGL, a company providing matchmaking services between NIL creators and brands, Digiday has learned.
The deal grants Dentsu and its clients (which include 7-Eleven, American Express and T-Mobile) access to some 30,000 college athlete creators across 1,100 U.S. universities.
Cara Lewis, chief investment and activation officer at Dentsu, said the deal was a response to rising demand among brand marketers for access to sports audiences – and a sign that the borders between influencer, celebrity and sport are collapsing.
“Athletes are becoming influencers. And influencers are important to the overall story. They can bring a different perspective,” said Lewis. ”Sports is in higher demand than it ever has been,” she added, but NIL creators can “bring a different angle” to marketing activity than established sports personalities.
The NIL sector has grown rapidly in the last four years, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed college athletes to get paid for brand and sponsorship work. It’s spawned a host of specialist firms connecting those creators – who, by definition, must juggle college studies with athletic performance and have less time to manage their creator work than full time influencers – with agencies and brand marketers.
“Brands really need to reach next-gen audiences. You can’t go and just put a billboard up on the quad of the campus. This avenue offers [a] really targeted strategy to reach that audience with influencers that they resonate with,” said Ayden Syal, co-founder and CEO of MOGL. Syal estimated that MOGL’s roster of NIL creators represents 10% of the college athletes currently working as influencers today, and that 25% of the 30,000 creators are football players.
Read the full article here.