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Marketing Brew

Sports

Alyssa Meyers

marketingbrew.com

It’s no secret that sports fans love content about their favorite teams. These days, that doesn’t just mean live games on legacy TV networks.

Some major US leagues, it seems, are well aware. As football season kicked off, the NFL inked a content partnership deal with sports newsletter and media company The Gist, plugging the league directly into The Gist’s 

, many of whom are millennial and Gen Z women. Earlier this week, The Gist announced a similar content deal with the NWSL.

Both partnerships are designed not only to serve the media startup’s audience with deep dives into their favorite sports, but also to drive fandom for the leagues beyond the audiences they’ve already been reaching for years, The Gist co-founders Jacie deHoop and Ellen Hyslop told Marketing Brew.

“We really saw that traditional sports media was very much focused on an avid male sports fan, and we really felt like there was an opportunity for us to engage with this next-generation female fan and create a community and create a media platform for her,” Hyslop said. “We knew that this audience…was going to be valuable to the teams and to the leagues that wanted to reach her, but didn’t necessarily have the right way.”

Both the NFL and NWSL were, according to deHoop, “dream partners” for The Gist, which was founded in late 2017 as a sports newsletter covering men’s and women’s sports equally. The NFL, which is the biggest league in the US, could have easily “laughed in our faces,” deHoop said, but she said league execs were “open and receptive” when talks started at the Super Bowl this year.

For The Gist’s readers, the NFL is their “No. 1 favorite sport,” according to Hyslop. Through the partnership, subscribers will have access to more NFL content, including a 

 that allows participants to guess which team will win each matchup of the season for the chance to win prizes.

“Women are so often left out of any fantasy league, the office pool, the survivor pool, and a big reason why we want to be that source is because we actually want to create a community where they feel welcome,” Hyslop said. For its part, the NFL, she said, gets to “continue to grow and lean into that female fandom.”

To further support the content partnership, The Gist will also up its presence and coverage around NFL tentpoles like the draft and the Super Bowl, Hyslop added; earlier this year, Gist staffers 

 the Super Bowl in person through a partnership with Verizon.

For Servi Barrientos, director of media partnerships at the NWSL, working with The Gist opens an avenue not just to acquire new fans, but to turn casual fans into avid ones through storytelling, he said.

On one level, Barrientos said he hopes to see the partnership drive game tune-in, which could also stand to benefit the league’s legacy media partners, including CBS, ESPN, Prime Video, and Scripps Sports. The Gist’s support will mean even more media coverage for the league, he added, keeping it in the news cycle more often than just during major games.

“We want to make sure that fans know where to find us and where to watch the game,” Barrientos said. “It’s important to have the right storytellers to be able to tell these stories of not only the players, but the leagues themselves, and continue to put out content…We live in a digital world now. The more content, the better.”

On a deeper level, Barrientos said he thinks that content can help create league superfans. The NWSL is giving The Gist an “inside look” at the league and access to players with the intention of driving more emotional stories that can “turn fans into passionate fans or avids,” he said.

Increased content coming out of the partnerships also opens up more branded content opportunities, which could benefit The Gist and the leagues. League sponsors already have access to tentpole moments like championship games; now, The Gist can cover those same moments more deeply and offer that content up to its brand partners, deHoop said. Meanwhile, new content, like the pick ’em challenge, is also sponsorable real estate.

“It gives our marketing partners an opportunity to extend their programming,” Barrientos said.

The content partnerships represent more than an opportunity for brands to target 

 sports fans—they open the door for marketers to tap into content that’s geared toward modern fans.

“Audiences are changing; their relationship with fandom is changing,” Hyslop said. “The folks at all of these leagues…are recognizing what they need to be doing to set up the league for success five, 10, 15 years down the line.”

NFL, NWSL are looking to reach next-gen fans with new media partnerships

Content deals with sports media startup The Gist come as both leagues look to reach millennial and Gen Z women fans.

FC Barcelona sits atop the La Liga rankings. And Spotify sits atop FC Barcelona—or at least on the team’s jerseys and facilities.

For the past three seasons, the audio company has been the Spanish soccer club’s main partner as part of a long-term deal that includes a front-of-kit sponsorship and stadium naming rights, among other assets.

But it’s not always the Spotify brand that appears on the Barça jerseys.

, Alex Norström, the company’s co-president and chief business officer, hinted in a statement at the time that Spotify was considering using the jersey real estate to highlight various artists and their brands. Since then, Spotify has swapped its own branding out on the jerseys for logos associated with major artists, like Drake’s company October’s Very Own and Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack brand.

Though Spotify occasionally removes itself from the Barça kits, VP of Marketing and Partnerships Marketing Marc Hazan said the sponsorship has proven invaluable for driving buzz for the brand.

“If I wanted to create cultural noise like we do with some of these things that we do, like Travis Scott, could you even do that without this [jersey asset]? I don’t think you could,” Hazan told Marketing Brew at Cannes Lions. “If you were trying to do that yourself, it would be very difficult and probably very expensive…So to us, it’s an unbelievable, unique platform for artists to showcase their work that can’t really be done anywhere else.”

 When the possibility of working with Barça crossed Hazan’s desk, Spotify wasn’t in the market for a sports sponsorship, he said. But the opportunity involved the team’s full suite of rights—including placement on both the men’s and women’s jerseys, as well as the training center and stadium naming rights—so Spotify went all in, according to Hazan.

“Spotify has never undertaken a partnership at this scale before,” Norström said in the announcement post.

While the tie-up was perhaps unexpected, the Spotify team was nevertheless convinced that it would result in worthwhile activations like the artist jersey partnerships, Hazan told us. Spotify kicked off the initiative with Drake in 2022 to celebrate him becoming the first artist to reach 50 billion streams on the platform, and has since partnered with artists including ROSALÍA, The Rolling Stones, Karol G, and Coldplay.

 One of the KPIs Hazan said he considers for the sponsorship is relative media value, and with a rabid, global fandom, Barça delivers in spades on that front, he said. Buzz is also especially important when it comes to the jersey takeovers. When Spotify put a limited number of the Travis Scott Barça jerseys up for sale—1899, to be exact, in honor of the year the team was founded—they sold out quickly, he said. Beyond that, he said, streams of Travis Scott songs increased by 40% following the Barça activation.

“The [number of] impressions that we get for these takeovers has just gone up and up and up and up and over time, and that’s now started to translate to on-platform activity,” Hazan said.

The activations even seem to supersede La Liga team rivalries; when Karol G performed at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, where Real Madrid plays, shortly after her Barça takeover, Hazan said he didn’t 

 anyone was put out (although when it comes to fandom, one can never be too sure there are no hard feelings).

 Hazan didn’t indicate any immediate intentions to stretch into other leagues, but he said he’s eager to work more closely with the athletes on FC Barcelona Femení and to tap into the iconic Spotify Camp Nou stadium, which is expected to reopen in September after renovations are complete.

“Each one of these takeovers has grown and grown and grown in terms of scope and opportunity,” Hazan said. “We will continue to push ourselves…because we believe there’s so much more to go.”

Update 06/24/25: This story has been edited to update Marc Hazan's title.

Side by side photo collage of Spotify's partnership with FC Barcelona featuring Travis Scott.

Behind the scenes of Spotify’s partnership with FC Barcelona

Three years into a wide-ranging sponsorship of the Spanish soccer club, Spotify’s VP of marketing and partnerships reflects on how it’s come to life, from jersey takeovers to naming rights.

It’s Cannes Lions Day 3! Halfway through. Time flies when you’re drinking rosé by the bottle on the beach.

I think I’m running on about eight hours of sleep total since touching down in France (and my Garmin watch is absolutely furious with me), but the late bedtime was especially worth it last night to catch one of Spotify’s iconic Cannes concerts. Alex Warren, Royel Otis, and sombr put on a great show, so it was worth missing out on some z’s. Sorry, Garmin.

I was back at Spotify Beach by 9am today to chat with a couple of their execs about the company’s 

 with FC Barcelona and some of its latest ad-tech innovations (although to be honest, it was way too early in the morning to hear terms like “programmatic” and “DSP”). Next stop was Stagwell’s Sport Beach, where I camped out for a few hours to listen to Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird do a live taping of their podcast, 

, with Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall. I also heard Mercedes F1 driver (and the most recent winner of the Canadian Grand Prix) George Russell speak about tech and the team’s work with 

. This just in: George’s hair looks just as incredible in person as it does on TV.

Before that, I caught up with Sebastian Tomich, CCO of The Athletic, who’s been spending his time talking with brand marketers about the publication’s newest products—like 

, a new vertical that covers sports leadership and personal development—and content plans, including for next summer’s FIFA World Cup. While it’s still a year away, some sports execs across 

, agencies, and brands are already in planning mode.

 Spotify, for taking on first-coffee-provider duty, plus having the most air-conditioned room I’ve ever experienced. Bonus points to Qualcomm CMO Don McGuire and Russell for tossing some autographed hats into the crowd. (I fought someone for one and came out victorious, bringing my combat-sports record to a perfect 2-0.)

 Google Calendar’s Time Insights feature, which is telling me I have 17 hours of meetings and panels on my calendar for the week. That is simply none of my business, Google Calendar. (Also, me, for announcing my deep McLaren fandom yesterday but walking around in a Mercedes hat today.)

Alex Warren performs on stage at Spotify Beach concert featuring Royel Otis, sombr & Alex Warren at Spotify Beach during Cannes Lions 2025 on June 17, 2025 in Cannes, France

Cannes 2025: Back to the (Spotify) beach 

A year out, there are already early conversations about the World Cup. 

You might not know Lewis Hamilton in real life. But you can always (try to) connect with him on LinkedIn.

The Ferrari F1 driver is among a larger influx of athletes who have joined the platform in the past five years or so, according to Laura Lorenzetti, LinkedIn’s senior director and executive editor of global editorial. The trend started largely among retired athletes as they moved onto the next stage of their careers, Lorenzetti said, but athletes on the platform now include current pros. In addition to Hamilton, Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry and tennis star Sloane Stephens are both on the platform, as are a number of college athletes.

“They are ultimately business people,” Lorenzetti told Marketing Brew. “They are professionals. Their first career is going to be their sport, [but] it is not going to be their last career. They are super savvy, and they understand that they need to be setting themselves up for whatever comes next, and they’re starting to do that earlier and earlier.”

We spoke with Lorenzetti to unpack why athletes are leveraging LinkedIn and what it means for the players and platform.

 has given modern athletes more control over their own brands and storytelling than ever before, and LinkedIn is no exception; Lorenzetti said one reason she thinks athletes have been using the platform is to break news about their careers themselves, as opposed to relying on more typical methods like press releases.

 his move from Mercedes to Ferrari on LinkedIn in a post that included the hashtag #newjob. Stephens, who hasn’t been competing lately due to injury, recently used the platform to 

 that she’d be covering this year’s French Open as part of the TNT Sports team.

“For these big-name celebrities, they themselves are brands,” Lorenzetti said. “You want to continue to position yourself as the leader, to be seen in a positive light, to be going directly to the consumer.”

Another reason why some current and former athletes may want to embrace LinkedIn: many of them are also no strangers to investing in—or starting their own—companies. Tom Brady 

 the merger of his fan loyalty platform Autograph with fitness platform Future on the platform, Carmelo Anthony 

 his wine company and entrepreneurship, Alex Morgan 

 the news about her move from San Diego Wave player to investor, and San Antonio Spurs point guard Chris Paul recently 

 to help spread the word about his new production company.

In at least one instance, an athlete says they used LinkedIn to help land their next gig. Stone Garrett, an American baseball player who currently plays professionally in South Korea, 

 on his profile that LinkedIn helped him get his spot on the MLB team the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2021.

LinkedIn isn’t just about entrepreneurship or business deals, and it’s common for athletes to post about wins, losses, and lessons on the platform. When Rafael Nadal 

 on his time playing at the French Open, he racked up more than 1,000 comments and more than 800 reposts, and retired six-time NBA All-Star Pau Gasol received hundreds of reactions on a 

 about an award he received for work done through his foundation.

As any athlete knows, though, sports isn’t all about wins. Alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn recently got vulnerable on LinkedIn, 

 about a fall she took during a race. That kind of post is something of a “sweet spot” in terms of the content the LinkedIn team tries to cultivate, said Katherine O’Hara, a group manager for the platform.

“She’s taking us behind the curtain,” O’Hara said. “She’s sharing something that she learned, and that then, in fact, helps someone who might be going through a similar setback in their career.”

In general, athlete posts “definitely get outsized engagement and conversation,” Lorenzetti said, since “people are hungry to engage” with pro athletes. While Lorenzetti and her team do offer athletes and their teams tips on how to best make use of LinkedIn, she said that largely, she’d like to see the trend of athletes using the platform progress naturally.

“Once you get a few key people, they’re all watching each other,” she said. “The minute 

 on here talking about his business and what’s coming next, Carmelo’s team is calling up…We definitely see athletes watching other athletes and taking cues from each other.”

Collaged images of different celebrities on LinkedIn.

Athletes’ next social media platform of choice? LinkedIn

“Their first career is going to be their sport, [but] it is not going to be their last career,” one LinkedIn exec said.

Jasmine Sheena

By the time the FIFA World Cup kicks off on June 11, 2026, we’ll have the next Knives Out mystery. We’ll (probably) know TikTok’s fate in the US. We might even have the next Rihanna album.

In other words, next June may seem far off—but that’s not stopping Telemundo from rolling out its World Cup marketing now to promote that the Spanish-language broadcast of the competition will air on the network. (Fox has the rights to the English-language broadcast.) As interest in watching live sports 

, the NBCU-owned network is upping the ante on its World Cup promotional efforts a year in advance to help build buzz for the tournament that will be jointly hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico.

It’ll all kick off today, exactly one year before the World Cup begins, with a live soccer match held on a floating barge off the coast of Miami, which itself will mark the beginning of multiple days of festivities. At Cannes Lions next week, NBCU execs will also tout their efforts around the World Cup. And as the tournament gets closer, there will be local marketing, experiential events, and other promotional efforts, including through Telemundo programming, with marketing featured across NBCU platforms to further promote the broadcast.

Planning around the event began over a year ago, Joaquin Duro, Telemundo EVP of sports, said, and the whole operation has been like “building a Lego [set] with 1,000 pieces.”

Today’s kickoff game will include two teams of three players, with soccer creators on hand to film content promoting the match, according to Mónica Gil, EVP and chief administrative and marketing officer at Telemundo.

The campaign, dubbed “El Mundial es Nuestro” (“The World Cup is Ours”), will kick off with a spot that will air across social, digital, linear, and owned channels in 90-, 60-, and 30-second versions. The ad features people in different places, like at home or at a bar, experiencing emotional highs and lows while watching soccer on TV.
In crafting the ad, the team “really focused on a few things, one that for Latinos, the FIFA World Cup…really is more than just a tournament,” Gil told Marketing Brew. “In this case, specifically, it really is a homecoming, if you will. Soccer is ingrained in our culture, it’s passed down through generations, making this moment something that is very deeply personal.”

After the kickoff, Telemundo is planning a local-first approach to its World Cup campaign, she said. With 11 cities in the US hosting World Cup soccer matches, the company is considering hosting experiential activations in key cities like Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. It’s also planning to work with local NBC stations in those cities to further market the games.

Telemundo will also leverage its buzzy new show, 

 to help build World Cup hype, Gil said. The show, which debuted in March, discusses all things sports in short segments that resemble a social feed, Duro said, and its programming style lends itself to use on Telemundo’s social accounts.

 will be instrumental in covering the World Cup kickoff festivities and will have a presence on Telemundo’s FAST channel, Telemundo Deportes Ahora, which will roll out in August, Duro said. The company is currently creating more than eight hours of live content each day, and Telemundo Deportes Ahora has already attracted the interest of advertisers, Duro said.

Given that the World Cup will also air on Peacock, Telemundo has plans to leverage NBCU Symphony, Comcast’s cross-platform advertising program, to promote its campaign, too, Gil said.

That could work in its favor: NBCU will reach 286 million viewers each month, NBCU’s chairman of global advertising and partnerships, Mark Marshall, told advertisers at the 

 last month. According to Telemundo statistics, 66% of NBCU viewers say they’re “very excited” about the 2026 World Cup, compared to 53% in 2022, when the World Cup was held in Qatar.

Out of those surveyed, more than half said they prefer the Spanish-language version of the telecast over the English-language version.

“While English may capture attention, Spanish captures emotion,” Gil said. “Some things are better in Spanish, and soccer is just one of them.”

How Telemundo is kicking off its World Cup marketing 

The soccer tournament, which takes place in a year, will get promoted through local marketing efforts and experiential events.

You won’t see the New York Knicks or the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA Finals this year, but you will see ESPN’s new DTC streaming service.

During Game 1 on Thursday night, the Disney-owned company is airing its first ad teasing the new product, which will be called, simply, ESPN. The spot, titled “Sports Forever,” is meant to spotlight the storied history of ESPN as a cable brand while raising awareness of the new service, particularly among younger viewers, SVP of Marketing Jo Fox said.

“When you think about media sports brands, there’s very few that can say that they have been with fans for over four decades,” Fox told Marketing Brew. “We’re in an increasingly competitive environment, and we thought, ‘Let’s look back, as we looked at our brand and our heritage.’”

 The ad opens on a scene of two people watching TV in a living room with overlay text that reads “Fall 1979, the first ESPN broadcast.” While some of the shots that follow include sports stars like Jalen Hurts, Rory McIlroy, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the spot is largely focused on fans, a decision that hinged on the insight that “sports fans are sports fans for life,” said Sinan Dagli, ECD of ESPN’s agency partner Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners.

“The most important thing for us was telling the story of sports fandom through ESPN, because it’s not just watching,” Dagli said. “It’s fantasy football, it’s notifications, and [it’s] being part of that full fandom, and not just being a passive spectator.”

 ESPN personalities including Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee, Lee Leonard, and Dick Vitale are also featured in the ad as part of the effort to connect with fans across sports, Fox said. Highlighting figures like the hosts of 

 emphasizes ESPN’s value proposition during real-life moments in addition to onscreen ones, she said, since the hosts and analysts often interact with fans. One shot in the ad shows Vitale crowdsurfing.

In addition to legendary analysts, star athletes including Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Caitlin Clark, and Paige Bueckers appear in the ad to help highlight ESPN’s 

More modern sports moments mix with Easter eggs and callbacks from over the decades, including a nod to the 

 theme music, as well as the appearance of a Hartford Whalers flag, the NHL franchise that became the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997 after relocating from Connecticut, where ESPN is headquartered.

Those references are aimed at cementing the long-term affinity ESPN has built among sports fans as it promotes its newest product offering, Fox said.

 A 60-second cut of the ad will run during Game 1 of the NBA Finals, followed by additional placements across ESPN-owned and other digital platforms, as well as out-of-home, Fox said. The ad is part of the initial phase of a broader campaign meant to raise awareness of the new offering, especially with younger fans who might only engage with the brand on social platforms like TikTok, she said.

“We wanted to talk to the heart first to remind people why they love sports [and] why ESPN has connected them to sports,” Fox said. The second phase of the campaign, though, will be more focused on showcasing features of the app like fantasy sports and betting capabilities.

 ESPN has caught some heat over its decision to name the service ESPN, including from late-night host Jimmy Kimmel during his annual roast at the 

, Fox said the choice was about preserving and capitalizing on the legacy that comes with the brand’s four letters. (For what it’s worth, ESPN wasn’t the only network to be the 

 about branding decisions at this year’s upfronts.)

“I think over time, as we’ve looked at the streaming universe in particular, people have made different decisions and probably perhaps regretted them,” Fox said. “Why would we throw away the love and respect and authority and legacy in our name?”

Hero image for ESPN's "Sports Forever" campaign

ESPN kicks off push to promote DTC service during NBA Finals

A new ad called “Sports Forever” aims to showcase ESPN’s legacy in sports while raising awareness about its forthcoming ESPN streaming service.

Ahead of the kickoff of the 2025 Major League Soccer season on February 22, MLS and Apple TV+, the home of MLS Season Pass, are expanding their offerings and giving fans more ways to watch.

As MLS Season Pass heads into its third year on Apple TV+, the streamer and the league announced additional programming, more fan experiences, and new distribution partnerships, including:

 will feature a select live game on Sunday evenings. Content will include pre- and postgame shows, graphics produced in both English and Spanish, and other production and studio content created using technology at its newly relocated production facility in Stamford, Connecticut.

 will feature the debut of San Diego FC, the latest team to join MLS’s ranks.

Expanded fan content inside and outside of the Apple ecosystem: 

A day before the MLS season kicks off, Apple TV+ will roll out the docuseries 

, which will focus on highlights from the 2024 MLS season. Similar to last year, MLS content will also be available across Apple Podcasts, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple Sports.

Executives are also talking about ways to build more fan-created social content for MLS Season Pass by potentially bringing creators to its facility, Seth Bacon, MLS EVP of media, said.

“We’re talking about what other shows can we do that will live on our social and digital channels, whether that’s pre-pregame shows [or] midweek programming,” he said during a press event this week.

Partnerships with Comcast, DirecTV, and T-Mobile:

 Comcast Xfinity customers will be able to sign up for MLS Season Pass through Xfinity, and it will be available through the Xfinity Stream app, X1, Flex, and Xumo Stream Box for those subscribers. Comcast and Apple will also bring the live show 

 to Xfinity customers, even those who don’t have an MLS Season Pass subscription. As for DirecTV, its residential customers will be able to buy a MLS Season Pass subscription through DirecTV.

MLS Season Pass also inked a deal with T-Mobile to offer certain customers free access to the streaming package. The companies had previously offered a similar promotion in 2023, but did not ink a partnership for the 2024 season.

These partnerships will offer MLS Season Pass “through different channels, but it’s all still pointing to the same direction, which is the partnership we have with Apple,” Bacon said.

Los Angeles Football Club player Hugo Lloris at MLS All-Star Game 2024.