Not so way back, if followers needed to listen to from their favourite athletes, they needed to watch for open locker room entry or the postgame press convention. Reporters requested the questions, and editors determined what made the story. There was separation between the particular person taking part in the recreation and the particular person reporting it.
Now athletes can seize a microphone, launch a podcast and inform their very own story, which blurs the strains of journalism. What appears like direct entry and unfiltered honesty is commonly half evaluation, half leisure and half one thing else totally, and it’s price asking who advantages from that shift.
A examine from the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center exhibits simply how massive athlete-owned media has turn into. Their researchers recognized 33 athlete-owned manufacturing corporations creating greater than 370 media tasks, together with podcasts, TV exhibits and digital collection. It has grown right into a multi-billion-dollar business.
For instance, LeBron James’s firm, The SpringHill Company, is valued at about $725 million, whereas Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions is price round $400 million. Athlete-hosted podcasts have racked up greater than 7 billion views on YouTube, 725 million likes on TikTok and 37 million Instagram followers, the examine discovered. These numbers aren’t simply developments; they characterize a serious shift in how sports activities media operates.
This is a win for athletes. They get to inform their aspect of the story. If there’s an issue, they’ll clarify it in their very own phrases as a substitute of by way of a clipped quote. Long-form podcasts present nuances that 30-second locker-room interviews hardly ever seize.
Younger sports activities podcast listeners are additionally a few of the most engaged and dependable customers in media. In 2023, 42% of Gen Z sports fans stated they “frequently” or “occasionally” listened to a sports activities podcast. They’re spending extra on sports activities merchandise every year, and about 67% say they belief the services utilized by the athletes they like. That belief provides athletes affect as model ambassadors.
That is the place it begins to get difficult. Athletes who host their very own exhibits usually are not simply speaking about the recreation or scorching subjects in sports activities. They are defending their fame and model whereas highlighting different corporations’ manufacturers. Endorsement offers, sponsorships and future alternatives are all tied to how they’re perceived. That does not imply they’re being disingenuous, but it surely does imply the story is being informed with private stakes connected.
This brings us to a fair larger query: who is actually in control — the athlete, or the model?
Look at Pat McAfee, for instance. The former Colts punter constructed The Pat McAfee Show into considered one of the world’s largest sports activities discuss platforms, mixing soccer breakdowns, locker room tales, opinions and sponsor reads all in the similar breath. One second he’s reacting to a scandal, the subsequent he’s selling a betting app.
When promotion is embedded into the dialog fairly than separated from it, it turns into a part of the expertise of consuming sports activities. The athlete decides what deserves consideration and what doesn’t. The platform grows by way of engagement, and engagement attracts partnerships. Over time, sturdy takes and marketable moments turn into extra than simply opinions. They turn into property.
And that dynamic creates actual points for the conventional fashions of sports activities journalism.
Reporters are skilled to ask uncomfortable questions. They are purported to problem coaches, press gamers on inconsistencies and examine points that groups and athletes may keep away from. The main job of a sports activities reporter is to tell the public. When audiences shift towards athlete-run platforms, that accountability can weaken.
Athletes are hardly ever going to scrutinize their very own contracts, locker room conflicts or organizational failures with the similar rigor a journalist may. The incentive buildings are utterly completely different.
Athletes have extra freedom than ever to form how they’re seen. But when storytelling, sponsorship and self-promotion are one and the similar, independence isn’t so simple as it sounds. If sports activities journalism’s function is to carry energy accountable, it turns into tougher to do this when energy owns the microphone.
Jack Davis (he/him) is a junior majoring in media with a sports activities focus and pursuing a minor in folklore and ethnomusicology and a certificates in journalism.