Digital Marketing Management for Athletes

Although digital marketing has been around for some time now, many athletes and their agents have failed to utilize all the available digital marketing tools. The numerous digital marketing tools that are available allow athletes and their agents to engage fans, decrease popularity of negative stories on search engines, create and grow a brand and reach out to potential sponsors. While many athletes use social media to engage fans, very few are using digital marketing’s many tools to do things such as decrease the digital footprint of negative stories.

While it’s hard for superstar athletes to hide from the media, they can still help control the damage in the long run from some scandals. Athletes like Tiger Woods may not be able to eliminate his scandalous affairs from the Internet but he can at least eliminate those stories from the first several results pages of a Google search. Athletes like John Terry will be able to accomplish something similar of his affair with a teammate’s girlfriend or stories of his racial comments towards a fellow player.

Image by James Perrin via Koozai

During a Google search of John Terry, many negative stories appear on the first page of results about him making potential racist comments. However, on the bottom of the page, an article clearing Terry of racism can be viewed. While this article’s placement on the first page is ideal, being at the bottom of a page with five articles insinuating that he is racist is not ideal. A better digital marketing strategy would likely help the desired articles to be featured on the front page while the less desirable articles are relegated to later pages.

Obviously, the best way to avoid bad press is to avoid scandals entirely but agents have no control over their clients or the media. However, once the damage is done, athletes and their agents now have the ability to lessen the negative affects of a scandal or bad press. A digital marketing strategy can also have the opposite effect by making positive stories more likely to appear on the first page of a Google search such as a player’s outstanding off-the-field undertakings. While most agents focus their time on negotiating contracts and seeking endorsement deals, it is becoming more and more advantageous for agents to manage athletes’ digital marketing. Digital marketing management is likely to become a key role of a sports agent in this continually growing digital age.