‘Athletes are becoming media entities’: Amplify launches new sports division

Creator economy agency Amplify has launched a new division in partnership with sports marketing platform Playa Power, to help athletes grow in the content creator space. Speaking exclusively to Mumbrella, Tom Maynard, co-founder of Amplify, and Ben Parsons, founder of Playa Power, explained what the division is and what the partnership entails.

Amplify Sport has been designed to help the sport ecosystem expand their monetisation opportunities, and aims to facilitate collaborations between athletes and leading brands.

With cultural moments like the recent Paris Olympics proving that athletes can be successful content creators, the division hopes to enhance athletes’ off-field presence and create lasting value for their careers.

And, with influencer marketing becoming a bigger part of brands’ marketing budgets, and advertising dollars beginning to flow into the space, Maynard said it felt appropriate to take advantage of that and launch Amplify Sport into market.

“This was the logical next step for us, we saw this huge opportunity in sport both from a talent management perspective but also from an influencer marketing perspective,” Maynard told Mumbrella.

“These athletes and sports stars have significant fandoms and communities around them that aren’t being leveraged or used or commercialised as best they can, so there’s a huge opportunity there to work with them.

“Athletes are becoming media entities – they are seeing opportunities to create longevity for their careers, not just while they are sports stars but when they retire too – they’re creating more agency over the next 30, 40 years of their careers.”

(L-R): Amplify’s Tom Maynard, NRLW player Shontelle Stowers, Amplify’s Sonja Stindl, Playa Power’s Ben Parsons, and Olympic diver Sam Fricker

Parsons added: “Sports still dominate ratings and the ability to draw in live audiences, so athletes have this ability to garner social media followers, I mean they have a huge advantage over everyone both from the algorithm sense but from a publicity sense too, which in turn creates audiences.

“They have got everything lined up for them to dominate this area too, there’s just been a lack of a couple of connecting dots – one is how to create the sensibilities around your social media, hence Playa Power, and one is what the advertisers are ultimately looking for, hence Amplify Sport.”

In collaboration with Playa Power, which officially launched in January, Amplify Sport will look to connect athletes and brands, provide them with the expertise and resources to strategically grow their influencer, and monetise their presence in meaningful ways.

Parsons insisted that ‘meaningful’ is the key word here – brands are trying to get across the white line within sport in an authentic manner, but social platforms don’t necessarily provide the opportunities they need.

“It makes inherent sense that the athlete is that natural step,” he told Mumbrella. “So for a brand, you’re still doing your big sponsorship within the category of sport, but you’re doing it with some authentic engagement. Most sponsorships have a fairly significant below the line support campaign, but what we’re delivering is traction within the target audience, and then expansion.”

While Maynard and Parsons acknowledged that authenticity is certainly a buzzword, and one that can be overused, they stressed that it remains important in this space.

People are becoming increasingly more aware of what the “reality of the situation is”, Maynard explained. They are starting to see through the marketing bullshit and can see when commercial deals are happening. So if they are just “force feeding” their brand message – it won’t be effective.

The program for athletes involved with Playa Power features a series of workshops with sports industry specialists that touch on everything from building a personal brand on social media, what the latest trends are, strategies are for maximum online impact and fan engagement, and more. It will also offer sustained guidance and mentorship to athletes, enabling them to continually refine their marketing strategies for enduring success and relevance.

The pair are aiming to deliver $1 million in brand opportunities in the next 12 months, via the athlete-brand empowerment initiative.

“There’s enough opportunity in the market,” Maynard said. “It’s very achievable – we could even shoot higher if we wanted.”

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Lauren McNamara

Lauren McNamara was the associate editor at Mumbrella. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left Mumbrella in August 2025.

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topics Amplify Amplify Sport athlete Ben Parsons brand marketing Playa Power sport sports marketing Tom Maynard

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