Reshaping the Sports Sponsorship Economy: From Exposure to Equity
The Sponsorship Crisis—How the Sports Economy Is Failing Its Athletes
Athletes are the engine of the sports economy, yet the system built around them too often leaves them running on empty. While billion-dollar leagues and brand campaigns dominate headlines, the majority of athletes—the ones representing their countries, elevating their sports, and inspiring the next generation—struggle to make ends meet. From Olympians living below the poverty line to young athletes reshaping their identities to play the social media algorithm game, today’s sponsorship model rewards visibility over value. The result is a short-sighted, unbalanced, and insular sports sponsorship economy where athletes and fans benefit least.
The Illusion of Success
Public perception paints athletes as universally wealthy, but the truth is far more complex. Outside of the 1 % of U.S. millionaire professional/elite athletes , most athletes rely on part-time jobs, family support, or crowdfunding to sustain their careers. Advocacy group Global Athlete surveyed nearly 500 elite athletes representing 48 countries and found that 58% of athletes did not feel financially stable. The myth of the millionaire athlete hides the reality that most are underfunded—or completely unfunded—for their contributions to sport.
Consider the Olympic and Paralympic movements. These athletes dedicate years, often decades, to their sport, training full-time while balancing work or school. Yet most US athletes receive little to no salary as the governing bodies for USA Olympics & Paralympics have limited money to give. For example, USA Shooting pays their athletes as little as $2,500 a year and even bonuses that come with medals often fail to cover even a fraction of training expenses. Many live below the poverty line despite representing their nations on the world stage. According to the 2024 Olympic Congressional Commission’s report, 26.5% of current athletes earn less than $15,000 annually and the cost to compete averaged $12,000 a year for most athletes. Sports like figure skating, however, can reach costs upwards of $50,000 a year and para-athletes who require specialized training and adaptive equipment face equally high costs, if not higher.
This gap has led to the rise of the “side-hustle athlete”—those who supplement training with coaching gigs, sponsorship deals, or small business ventures just to stay in the game. The emotional and physical toll of this financial instability is immense. When athletes must choose between recovery time and rent, the result is burnout, shortened careers, and lost opportunity. The system praises their dedication but rarely pays for it.
The Social Media Trap
Enter the influencer economy—a double-edged sword for modern athletes. Social media has given them direct access to audiences and, theoretically, a way to potentially get sponsors’ attention. But it’s also shifted the playing field from performance to personality. In today’s landscape, athletes are not only expected to win but also to entertain, create content, and present a version of themselves to chase algorithms.
Many athletes now feel pressure to build a personal “brand” rather than simply pursue their sport. Authenticity becomes secondary, if not entirely compromised, with posts optimized for engagement and aesthetics often valued over substance. The Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) era, while opening new doors for college athletes, has also blurred the line between opportunity and exploitation. The promise of autonomy is real—but so is the risk of being turned into a commodity before even going pro.
Brands have become increasingly adept at leveraging followers, likes, and clicks—often receiving impressive returns on their sponsorship investments, sometimes as high as 5:1. Yet for many athletes, the balance of value can feel uneven. Instead of financial support, partnerships often come in the form of gear, discounts, or “exposure.” While athletes appreciate this recognition, many quietly express that what they truly need is funding—resources to cover training, travel, and competition fees. The result is a gap between what brands offer and what athletes actually need to sustain their careers. A free pair of shoes or discounts on supplements don’t cover groceries or healthcare.
The hidden cost of this “exposure economy” is that it prioritizes short-term visibility over long-term value. Brands chase engagement spikes. Athletes chase viral likes. And fans are left to wonder what’s genuine and what’s pay-to-play. As sponsorships and branded content blend into everyday storytelling, it can be hard to tell where authenticity ends and promotion begins. Yet, this shift also reveals something powerful: fans crave what feels real.
The Brand–Athlete–Fan Disconnect
The traditional sponsorship model is driven by transactions, not relationships. Brands seek reach; athletes seek funding; fans seek connection. But who truly wins? Athletes become one-time ad placements rather than long-term partners. Brands measure success in clicks, not credibility. And fans—whose loyalty drives the entire system—are treated as data points rather than communities. Success stories like Simone Biles and Athleta show what happens when that dynamic shifts. Since 2021, Biles has partnered with Athleta because the brand supports her as an individual and shares her commitment to empowering women and girls. Together, they’ve built a partnership rooted in authenticity and impact—the kind of alignment today’s fans notice and reward with loyalty, engagement, and trust.
Unfortunately, these examples are still the exception. The short-term ROI mentality can undermine trust and feel one-sided. Many sponsorships hinge on follower counts and conversion rates that barely reach 1%. That model completely overlooks athletes in niche or underrepresented sports whose audiences may be smaller, but are often the most loyal and engaged. The focus on scale over substance has led to a marketplace obsessed with numbers for numbers’ sake, rather than connection based on authenticity, relevance, and representation.
Bridging the Sponsorship Gaps
If the old model is broken, how do we fix it? Imagine sponsorships that look more like partnerships: long-term, values-based, and more equally beneficial to athletes, fans, and brands. Skyler Espinoza, a world championships medalist and 2x Parapan American champion, said in her article with Parity, “Appropriately valuing an athletes’ time and commitment will help you [the brand] gain credibility within the community and strengthen your [the brands’s] current and future partnerships.” Brands have the opportunity to invest in the value of credibility and experience—measured not by impressions, but by real impact to brand preference, loyalty, and the bottom line. The real opportunity lies in investing in athletes, programs, and communities that help people see their own potential—turning sponsorship into a path for personal and collective growth..
Some companies are starting to get this right. Patagonia’s ambassador program prioritizes athletes whose environmental and social values align with its own. Whoop partners with athletes to share data-driven insights that improve performance, not just sales. Lululemon and Shimano focus on relationships that foster community and inclusion.
Reshaping a win-win-win sports sponsorship economy means redefining success. Sponsorships driven by who shouts the loudest are short-sighted and leave untold revenue, audience loyalty, and community impact on the table. The brands that will win the most are investing their sports sponsorship dollars in athletes, programs and platforms that help consumers see the possibilities of investing in themselves.
Reframing Sports Sponsorship
The sports sponsorship disconnect isn’t just an equity problem—it’s a values problem. As long as chasing followers and viral moments outweighs the value of credibility and experience, the system will continue to fail the athletes, fans, and even brands, who make it possible. Shifting the focus from exposure to equity, and from algorithms to authenticity, opens the door for every athlete—Olympic, professional, or committed amateur—to afford to compete and inspire. Ontheside is a part of that shift to reimagine a sports sponsorship economy where compensation aligns with contribution, and where athletes, fans, and brands invest in one another in new ways.
