AG1, the supplement brand formerly known as Athletic Greens, was founded 15 years ago with natural ties to sports. But it wasn’t until about eight years into the company’s existence that it started inking official sports sponsorships, choosing to take a slow and steady approach to the deals.
“The last step in a sports community-building approach is to sign a check,” AG1 CMO Paulie Dery told Marketing Brew, later adding that this sponsorship strategy can involve years of legwork before deals come to fruition. “I think a lot of brands don’t want to invest that time, that manpower on the ground, to build those relationships, but we do.”
Despite being slightly unorthodox, his philosophy of selecting and measuring sponsorships seems to be paying off this year as AG1 ramps up its involvement with sports: In 2025, the company has announced partnerships with England Rugby, the US SailGP team, and the LIV Golf League’s Ripper GC team.
Rome wasn’t built in a day
AG1’s sponsorship roots are largely with the endurance running and outdoor sports communities, with which the brand had ties long before the relationships became official, Dery said. In 2018, when AG1 was Athletic Greens, it was named as the “official training partner” of Spartan Races in the US.
- In 2019, it partnered with USA Cycling, and in 2023, it became the “official foundational nutrition supplement” of global Ironman events.
- The company has also worked with prominent individual athletes including Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix.
- Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton is an AG1 investor and has also posted about the brand.
With more than 75 ingredients, plus a market crowded with more vitamins and powders for athletes than ever, it can be “hard to communicate” the science behind the product to build trust, Dery said. Athlete endorsements can help tell the story, similarly to the way podcast hosts helped explain the product in its earlier days.
Ideally, athletes discover AG1 on their own, Dery said, then spread the word to their peers and fans.
“I always say, ‘It’s not for me to decide our community,’” Dery said. “It’s for the communities to find us, and we will support.”
When he heard a contingency of golfers had taken to using AG1 before they played, for instance, he leaned into the sport with investments in LIV Golf and Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TGL. And when AG1 was launching in Australia and Dery’s team found out World Surf League champion Mick Fanning already used the product, they inked a deal. Now, Dery said he’s considering doing more in the sport.
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“Any community that supports you, you should get behind and really invest in and spend time in, and then tell great stories about these people to educate other people on the power of your product,” Dery said. “What we find is working with our communities that already love us to help tell that story is just so beneficial because they know, they understand. They also can prove how much AG1 helps them because of what they achieve.”
Energy drink
In addition to a fairly nontraditional approach to choosing sponsorships, Dery forgoes some of the usual KPIs like reach and engagement in favor of a different metric: “The only KPI I use is energy,” he said.
Confused, marketers? So is Dery’s CFO. “I’m not sure it’s his favorite KPI,” Dery said.
The “energy” metric means people are excited about the brand, he explained. Dery and his team “invest a lot of time and effort to actually turn up to events” where their communities are active, and he wants to see that people there are eager to talk about the brand, he said. He can also get a read on energy through inbound interest from athletes and other brands about partnerships.
Dery said this measurement strategy works for him in part because he’s more focused on long-term brand building than driving immediate sales.
“I think putting other metrics on top of things will make you make bad decisions,” he said. “I always tell the team, ‘Build for the next 200 years, not the next two.’”
With a KPI that’s more based on vibes than hard numbers, as some marketers prefer, gauging success can be a challenge. But to this day, Dery said he hasn’t had to pivot or pull back from an athlete or a sport because he wasn’t seeing the results he expected.
“That’s why the year or two-year process of courting each other is crucial,” he said. “You’re not just courting an athlete, you’re courting their whole community and testing the waters…Having the fortitude to stick it out, set yourself longer timelines, and jump in really protects you from doing something dumb.”