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College athletes and the Olympics

What these athletes can teach you about building your brand

You may have watched some of the 2024 Summer Olympics over the past 10 days. (Heck, you may be watching them right this moment.)

While many of the athletes competing are professional, most of them competed at the college level - and there are also current college athletes competing at the Summer Games!

Notable athletes include:

• Jade Carey (women’s gymnastics, Oregon State)

• Rachel Glenn (women’s track and field, Arkansas)

• Asher Hong (men’s gymnastics, Stanford)

• Hailey Van Lith (women’s 3×3 basketball, TCU)

As a student-athlete, how can you use large-scale events to build your brand?

Tips

• Be ready for your moment

  • As these athletes perform on a global stage in front of a massive audience, they are poised not only to capitalize on a gold medal, but for their personal brand as well.

  • If you have a big game, and people search for you on social media, and your username is something like ‘ballislife14’ you are probably not going to score many brand deals.

    • Aim to have your social media profiles be your first and last name (or as close to it as possible).

  • You might not compete in the Olympics, but you will essentially have your “Olympic moment” multiple times throughout your athletic career. Make it count for your personal brand.

• Collab on content

  • College Olympic athletes are competing on new teams this summer before returning to school. This means they are making new friends - and new content collaboration partners.

  • You can follow suit by befriending athletes from other schools (outside of competition, of course), exchange info, and potentially create content on-site.

    • This way, you tap in to a new audience (the other athlete’s followers) and those athletes will tap in to your followers as well.

• Generate revenue

  • Leverage your big moments to benefit you in the form of camps, meet and greets, autograph signings, etc.

    • Competed in the Olympics? Use that as part of your branding to attract camp signups.

    • Won a conference championship? Mention it to increase foot traffic to your meet and greet event.

    • Set a school record? Awesome! Advertise it as a way to bring more people to you.

Thank You for reading today’s newsletter

^{I discuss insights and news related to NIL and personal branding for athletes every Wednesday at 12p ET/9a PT.}

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