PlayersVoice, Opendorse and Pickstar unite to grow athlete-generated media sector
Three online platforms focused on the athlete-generated media industry have joined forces to help brands create, distribute and monetise content.
Athlete-generated content platform, PlayersVoice, athlete booking platform PickStar, and athlete-driven content distributor, Opendorse, will jointly promote and educate the market on the athlete-generated media category, in an attempt to create better efficiencies for athletes and brands.
The three businesses will work together to provide more efficiencies to agencies and brands
Kerry McCabe, CEO of PlayersVoice, told Mumbrella the non-exclusive alliance was about providing an end-to-end offering for clients and expanding the athlete-generated media sector.
“Athletes are becoming a powerful force in media. Every professional sports person is a brand and they are starting to do something about growing the brand and commercialising the brand,” McCabe said.
“Given it’s an emerging category, we feel like athletes and marketers will get the maximum value and efficiency from the athlete-generated media category through operators who specialise and complement each other, like the three of us do.
“It’s bringing those skills and offerings together from ideation to access the right talent for a campaign, to creation of content, through to distribution and reporting.”
The three businesses have previously worked together, but the new alliance plans to build efficiency for athletes, who currently have limited ways to create personal brands.
“There’s always been huge demand for athlete partnerships, from both marketers and sports stars, but the search, pitch and booking process has typically been very difficult,” said Andrew Montesi, head of marketing at PickStar, in a release.
“At PickStar we’ve changed the way the market finds and books sports talent, and aligning with other AGM companies, who play a different but complimentary role in the athlete media and marketing category, will only grow the market, drive greater commercial outcomes and improve the experience for all involved.”
Chris Todd, vice president of brand partnerships at Opendorse, said the agreement was an exciting opportunity, which would help the business expand its work.
But McCabe told Mumbrella the alliance is not currently a corporate one, adding it was not required.
“We are separate corporate entities and that is how it is at the moment. There is no corporate ownership alliance, it’s an industry alliance to grow the category,” he said.
“There’s almost more benefit in having, at this stage, absolute experts in the respective fields, sticking to their core strengths, focusing on being brilliant at that. That’s not to say this category isn’t growing fast and evolving quickly, so there’s always opportunities in the future for more co-operate partnerships.”
This decision to align the three businesses comes at a time of change for the athlete-generated media sector. Late last year, another player in the sector, 20Four, went into liquidation.
