Sports rights holders have historically used a range of tools to broaden their audiences, increase rights value and maximise revenues. As the media landscape has shifted significantly in recent years, with traditional formats increasingly displaced by social media, the methods through which rights holders seek to attract new audiences have changed, with greater focus now being placed on partnerships with individuals, such as influencers, who have a large personal following and can enable organisations to reach audiences outside of the traditional media ecosystem. 

With influencer partnerships becoming more prominent in monetisation strategy across the sports industry, here we consider the key issues organisations need to be aware of when engaging influencers.

From broadcasters to creators

The use of influencers has become a highly attractive marketing strategy across virtually every sector, with sports organisations increasingly partnering with creators to amplify their reach and engage new (particularly Gen-Z) audiences in innovative and authentic ways. Social media has drawn the latest generation of sports fans away from traditional broadcast channels, making it far easier to reach younger audiences through digital media. As influencers bring their own established audiences on key platforms, they have become a pivotal tool for organisations looking to expand their audience base.

Recent examples illustrate this trend clearly:

• Paris 2024 and Milan Cortina 2026: NBC launched its "Creative Collective" programme for the most recent editions of the Summer and Winter Olympics, bringing together influencers with a combined following of over 250 million to expand the reach of broadcast coverage.
• FIFA Club World Cup 2025: DAZN, the official worldwide broadcaster of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, launched a creator programme in connection with the event to drive viewing figures. The initiative involved over 100 creators with a combined reach of over 32 million followers. TikTok claimed the platform drove 500,000 fans to the DAZN service.
• Bundesliga: The German Bundesliga became the first top-flight European league to grant broadcast rights to content creators, with 20 games in the 2025–26 season broadcast on the ‘That's Football’ YouTube channel.
• Disruptor sports: Sports properties such as the Baller League have been notable for their use of influencer marketing to build profile and audience from the ground up.

Key Considerations

As the use of content creators becomes a more widely adopted means of extracting value from sports properties, leveraging influencer relationships has become essential for organisations in the sports industry. When engaging influencers, organisations will need to ensure that they have a robust contract in place, and these are some of the key considerations to be aware of:

1. Intellectual Property

The agreement will need to set out clearly who owns the IP rights in the content being created. Influencer partnerships represent a significant investment and cost, so organisations will usually want to ensure that they own the rights in any content that the influencer creates through the partnership. If that is the case, the agreement will need to include an assignment of rights in the content and should cover any future works created by the content creator even if they are not in existence when the agreement is signed to ensure that copyright vests in the organisation immediately on creation. A waiver of moral rights by the influencer in connection with the content would also need to be included. If it is instead agreed that the influencer will retain ownership in any content created, the agreement would need to include a broad, perpetual licence for the organisation to be able to use the content as they wish. 

If, as part of the partnership, the influencer is able to use any of the organisation’s IP, the agreement will need to include a licence granting this right to the influencer and will need to clearly set out the parameters and restrictions around such use, including any obligation to adhere to brand guidelines. 

Care will also need to be taken that any content posted does not infringe any third party IP rights and the organisation will want to protect against that in its contract with for example, approval rights and appropriate warranties and indemnities from the influencer.  

2. Advertising Regulations

The organisation will need to ensure that there is a clear obligation for the influencer to comply with any advertising regulations that are applicable in the territory where the influencer conducts any promotional activities. From a UK perspective, this will include compliance with ASA requirements on making sure that any content is obviously recognisable as advertising (including making any required disclosures where payment or another incentive has been received, which means as a minimum including a prominent label at the beginning of the content stating it is an ad). The ASA has always made it clear that the responsibility for compliance is shared between the influencer and the brand, so the organisation will need to play an active role in ensuring that influencers are fully aware of the requirements.

3. Reputational Management

What an influencer posts on its channels can have such an impact on an organisation’s reputation, from a positive and negative perspective, and therefore reputational management provisions will be very important to include in the agreement. As well as specific contractual commitments from the influencer to not do or say anything which may be detrimental to the organisation’s reputation, organisations may wish to include: (a) obligations for the influencer to adhere to brand guidelines; (b) approval rights over any content before publication; and (c) termination rights and financial remedies for any breach of the reputational obligations or any issues which may more generally have an adverse effect on the organisation’s reputation.

4. Financial Structure

As influencer partnerships have become more important to sports organisations, the cost of these partnerships has increased. Whilst a fixed-fee payment remains the most straightforward model (and is likely to remain the default for partnerships with well-established organisations, with deeper pockets) there is a growing range of alternative structures that organisations and influencers may wish to consider, including:

• performance-based arrangements: agreements where the influencer's remuneration is linked to measurable outcomes, such as audience growth, engagement metrics or ticket sales;
• revenue share models: agreements where the influencer is given a share of revenues from ticket sales, merchandise or subscriptions; and
• equity participation: where the influencer is given an equity stake in the business as payment, which is popular for some disruptor sports where the immediate cash-flow is low but there may be significant long-term upside.

5. Use of AI

As the use of AI becomes more prevalent, organisations may wish to include guardrails in their contract around the use of AI by influencers. For example, any restrictions over the use of AI and a notification or approval process over use of AI.

The Road Ahead

The opportunity presented by influencer partnerships to extend a sports organisations’ reach into audiences that conventional broadcast coverage cannot access is likely to grow. Organisations will need to ensure that any partnership is backed by a robust commercial agreement to ensure that significant commercial upside can be delivered whilst minimising the organisation’s exposure to risk.