The Olympian to influencer pipeline

0:01NPR

0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma. And I'm Waylon Wong. We are still in the thick of Olympic season. The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games kicked off this week, and the athletes that competed at the Olympics earlier this summer are back home now, maybe taking a victory lap. Or a victory nap. That's what I would do. I would get a gold medal in napping. Some of these athletes are entering or returning to college in the U.S., maybe with a higher profile post-Olympics. Now, in a previous era, these college Olympians wouldn't be able to capitalize on their fame by, say, signing endorsement deals with companies.

0:47But college athletes can do this today. That's because back in 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association loosened its rules around how athletes are allowed to make money off their image. This is a big boon for students like Frederick Richard. He's a gymnast at the University of Michigan, and he was part of the U.S. men's gymnastics team that won a bronze medal in Paris. Oh, he also has almost 850 ,000 followers on TikTok. You know, the TikTok world, the social media world, it's like, wow, you can reach new people that have never seen your face. The NCAA rule changes opened up a whole new level of economic opportunity for athletes like Frederick.

1:28Today on the show, we look at how the Paris Olympics have boosted the earning potential for college athletes, especially in sports that historically have been kind of overlooked. and Frederick tells us how his business life has changed after the Olympic Games.

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3:13So given the opportunity to ask a question of an honest-to-God Olympian, I did not throw away my shot. Do you wear your Crocs in sports mode? You know what's funny? I have them rocking some Crocs right now. Bringing the hard-hitting questions, Waylon. I know. That's what you come to NPR for. Yeah, so we're talking about those rubber-like clogs with the holes in them. Yeah, Frederick actually has a brand deal with Crocs. And sports mode for the uninitiated is when you wear the shoes with the strap around the back of your foot. I wear them in sports mode when I'm walking really fast. So that's probably 15 % of the time.

3:49But it is funny saying, like, hold up, let me get in sports mode real quick. And Frederick might need that because he is moving fast lately. He's going on a 30-city exhibition tour with Simone Biles. He's starting his junior year at the University of Michigan. And he has over a million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined to keep entertained. That audience is important because Frederick is building a business around his personal brand. That deal he has with Crocs? That wouldn't have been possible a few years ago. Before July of 2021, the NCAA prohibited college athletes from making money on what's called name, image, and likeness.

4:25The NCAA's rationale was that doing this would be contrary to the organization's mission of promoting, quote, amateur athletics. So college athletes could not do things like sign sponsorship deals with brands or get paid to sign autographs. They might not even be able to, like, run a sports camp for kids. And if they ran afoul of these rules, they risked losing their eligibility and maybe even their scholarships. These restrictions meant that a lot of college-age Olympic athletes would drop out of school or skip an undergraduate career altogether. Instead, they would turn professional. And then they would be free to do things like get endorsements or launch a line of merchandise.

5:04But then college athletes started advocating for better compensation, including a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. And in 2021, the NCAA amended its rules around name, image, and likeness. Now, that was right before the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. So the rule changes were too new for many Tokyo Olympians to really take advantage of the opportunity. But they came just in time for Frederick, even if he didn't immediately recognize how significant these changes would be. When it happened, it's before I even got into college. So I was like, oh, I don't really know what this means, but cool.

5:37I'll get an extra couple bucks. You know what I mean? As a high school student in Massachusetts, Frederick had already built up a following on social media for his gymnastics videos. He entered the University of Michigan in 2022, and he saw that companies were really interested in sponsoring college athletes. He realized he could make more than just an extra couple bucks off this. So Frederick used a stipend from USA Gymnastics to hire two videographers. They helped shoot and edit the content for his social media accounts. Definitely felt like a risk, but I knew, like, I have full scholarship here.

6:10I have no debt. I could stay living off the dining meal plans for a little longer. You know, I don't need to use this money for anything else. You know, I have a goal that I want to reach. I realized, okay, treat this like a business, you know, invest in the right areas and the money will come back. And the money did come back. So Frederick's first brand deal was with a company called Flips that makes chocolate-covered pretzels. And it just so happens that Frederick's Instagram and TikTok handle is FrederickFlips. So I think this is what people in the ad business call synergy. Frederick also signed deals with Google, Marriott, and Celsius, the energy drink company.

6:51He has his own clothing line now. This profile made him a social media star even before he made the team for the Paris Olympics. Yeah, pretty unusual for a male gymnast. because Frederick doesn't compete in, you know, one of the major money-making sports for colleges. He doesn't play football or men's basketball. There are only 12 schools in the country that even have a Division I men's gymnastics program. Compare that now to over 350 D1 basketball programs. It's not the basketballs or the footballs where there's a big lump sum of money in contract waiting for you. I want to be making the same amount of money as these guys.

7:29Nowhere near yet. But, you know, that's still the goal to get to that level. And so I had to get creative and say, OK, the money is going to come from building amazing businesses and using my name and image to do big things rather than just the gymnastics part. College athletes can be part of the influencer economy now. And a lot of companies see athletes as the ideal way to reach young customers. That's according to Aiden Sayel. He's the co-founder and CEO of Mogul, an online marketplace that matches up college athletes with brands. Ultimately, what brands are looking to get out of the athletes is to reach college students and Gen Z consumers.

8:07So all of these athletes are on campus and are the same age demographics, use the same products, have similar likes and interests. It doesn't matter what sport you play. It frankly doesn't really matter how good you are either, though that helps. Yeah, you know what else helps? Being an Olympic caliber athlete like Frederick Richard. He says his DMs on Instagram basically exploded after he competed in Paris. So now he lets his agent sift through all the inbound requests from potential sponsors. I don't know how my agent juggles the amount of things coming. You need a team to make the process easy.

8:44Another big difference post-Olympics for Frederick is that the brand deals he's negotiating now are for like four-year terms. Before, they were usually for one year. And this suits Frederick just fine. He says he's playing the long game and going for more lucrative partnerships than something like free food in exchange for an Instagram post. At Michigan, I door dash every single day and I get Sweetgreen. Sweetgreen, you know, the national chain of salad restaurants. And every time I get Sweetgreen, people come up to me like, hey, why don't you do a deal with Sweetgreen? You can easily get free Sweetgreen every day.

9:18And they don't realize, like, it's not about just getting free food. Like, that's undervaluing myself, you know. I can just sign a deal that values me right and it pays for my sweet green. I'm thinking five, ten years out because I'm going to be doing my sport for five, ten years. If a brand isn't going to help me get closer to that, I don't really care about working with them. Frederick says he ultimately wants to raise the entire profile of men's gymnastics in the U.S. That's a goal that will outlast his own college career at the University of Michigan. When I look at my brand, I'm really thinking about how am I growing the sport?

9:49How am I giving opportunities to younger kids? Just kids like me, like growing up, I didn't see a lot of black kids in the gym. And like, I want the sport to be 20 times as big. So are we going to see Frederick on a Wheaties box soon? Or, you know, whatever this is, the 2024 equivalent of the Wheaties box? Well, Frederick couldn't divulge too much about deals in the works, but he does have a new bobblehead. Man, I feel like gymnasts are the new moguls. If Frederick is any sign of the future. Yeah, I mean, he's presiding over a business empire. This episode was produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Kweisi Lee.

10:25It was fact-checked by Sarah Juarez. Kate Kinkin edits the show and The Indicator is a production of NPR.

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