When in their career does an athlete become a brand? Do you have to wait until you’ve reached Beckham-esque levels of fame, with more trophies and global recognition than almost any of your peers?
Our answer is always the same: as soon as you’re an athlete, you’re also a brand. No waiting for national or international achievements. No having to prove yourself among the very elite of your chosen sport. From Day One, you need to recognise, protect, and develop your potential value as a brand – whatever your sport, and whatever tier you compete in.
Travel back 40 years and consider the launch of Virgin Atlantic. In the early 1980s, it hadn’t flown a single flight. It was still just a twinkle in Richard Branson’s eye. But it deliberately cultivated a brand from the very beginning, using stunts and photoshoots to position itself as the fun, adventurous alternative to traditional carriers.
Richard Branson didn’t wait until he’d cracked the airline market to start work on Virgin Atlantic’s brand. He built the brand as he built the airline – and athletes need to do the same. Yes, you’re there to win, just like Virgin Atlantic is there to get customers from A to B. But there’s a bigger picture to consider – and a huge opportunity waiting for you to grasp.
Role of athlete data in the 21st century
In the ‘old days’, athletes often had very little control over their branding. Gatekeepers like traditional media portrayed you how they wanted to. But social media changed everything, giving you instant control over your positioning and comms, as well as the chance to grow your own fan database and build your own intellectual property like podcasts. And now with ProDataStack providing access to multiple data points, athlete branding has come of age.
In September 2024, The Athletic wrote extensively about the personal branding of Manchester City defender Ruben Dias. With the support of the excellent Paulo Malva do Vale at Nebula Sports, Dias is working hard to refine and reinforce a personal brand that will go well beyond his time at the Etihad Stadium. If you’d like to know more about Paulo Malva do Vale and his business you can read it here.
If he builds his brand particularly well, it will even travel with him for the rest of his life – not just his sporting career. “What we’re creating is a sort of brand insurance,” Paulo said.
This is just one example of a growing trend for footballers data and their branding.
Personal branding for athletes
Dias and Malva do Vale are not alone. Around the world, more and more professional and semi-professional athletes are getting tuned into their potential off-field value. Experts like David Neiman say building your personal brand “can be the difference between being ‘just another player’, and someone special who people want to invest in.”
Another leading thinker in this field, Thomas Van Schaik, produced the brilliant Athlete Brand Book, full of strategies and prompts to help athletes build better personal brands.
And now, with platforms like ProDataStack able to monitor real-time updates to any athlete’s global brand – including sentiment metrics, search demand, social mentions – the onus really is on athletes to grasp the initiative and become their own long-term success partner.
Every day you wait is a day your opponents are getting ahead, so start now.
Book a demo or contact us to see how ProDataStack can help you build the brand you deserve.
