By Jennifer Reynolds, contributing editor and writer with a passion for Georgia’s creative industries
Many law firms, banks, agencies and other businesses have divisions they call “Sports & Entertainment.” It’s interesting to look back at how sports and entertainment have converged, especially in today’s Creative Economy that has evolved over recent years.
Consider: In the 1930s, if you wanted to watch a baseball game, you had to physically go to the stadium.
All that changed in 1939 with the first televised game between Columbia and Princeton. Months later, at the 1939 World’s Fair, the first Major League Baseball (MLB) game was broadcast. The doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Dodgers was aired for the roughly 400 televisions that could receive the signal.
In those days, the creative industries worked alongside sports in two simple ways. The first was through advertising the game itself. The second was through marketing during the game, which included hand-painted signs from local businesses in the outfield.
As the popularity of sporting events grew, companies began expanding how they could leverage them to promote products. An example was the advent of athlete endorsements. Honus Wagner was the first athlete to receive money for an endorsement when, in 1905, he signed a deal to allow Louisville Slugger to sell baseball bats bearing his name.
Wagner, who is credited with saying, “I won’t play (baseball) for a penny less than fifteen hundred dollars,” signed his endorsement deal for $75, about $2,600 today. The move demonstrated that even from the start endorsements had the potential to increase an athlete’s earnings exponentially.
In the coming years, sports and entertainment would grow alongside the advancement and reach of technology. The success of sports was directly tied to an increase in the number of households who owned radios and televisions. From there, sports entertainment would grow and expand to become the billion-dollar industry it is today.
Sports and the sports boom
Analysts project the sports industry’s revenue will hit nearly $700 billion by 2028. Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is reported to be the top-endorsed athlete in the world with an estimated $60 million in endorsements.
Sportico reported in February 2024 Ronaldo’s total earnings amounted to $275 million, citing his “endorsement portfolio [that is]befitting [of]a person with 620 million Instagram followers.”
Advertising growth through endorsements was not the only change to come about as sports and the Creative Economy grew older together. As the media found, sports entertainment could be a star, and one Georgia company set out to find out how.
From 1976 to 2007, Atlanta Braves baseball games aired nationally on TBS, connecting them with fans far beyond the Peach State. The Braves would go on to earn the moniker “America’s Team” for its far-reaching connection to fans as facilitated by broadcast.
In an 2023 article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution, former Braves pitcher Tom Glavine said, “Sometimes you forget how far-reaching a station like that was. When we started to get good, it was amazing the following we had on the road everywhere we went. It was because of TBS. People watched us all over the country. I’ve heard so many stories from people, even now, that are Braves fans because of TBS back in the day. They’re not from Atlanta. They have no connections to Atlanta.”
This provided insight into how the internet would later allow teams to reach fans around the world. Today’s sports fans can follow their favorite teams and sports no matter where they live. The ability to reach a broader fan base means sports fans who traditionally received little media coverage (women’s softball or bowling) now have the opportunity to connect with the teams and players they love.
Beyond that, it has created a home for niche sports such as World Chase Tag, pickleball and even quidditch, which received its start in the most creative way possible—as a fictitious sport in the Harry Potter book series.
In an article for Medium, Abraham Content Marketing founder Peter Abraham outlined the benefits of what he calls the “nichification” of sports. “The result,” Abraham said, “is that fans can go way down the rabbit hole of a sport they follow.”
The power of geography
Geography is not the only change the internet brought to sports. It also allowed a closer connection between sports stars and their fans via social media. Before our eyes, new industries are evolving as sports teams, stars and fans harness the power of the web to create income streams through their creativity.
This interplay between sports and the Creative Economy has given athletes more career freedom. Former pro golfer Paige Spiranac admitted publicly she left the game because the pressure of tournaments became too intense. In a personal vlog on her channel, she spoke of being depressed while playing professionally.
In the past, Spiranac would have had few options for a career beyond playing golf professionally. In 2016, she left the sport and has since created a successful career as a golf social media influencer, amassing a following of more than 400,000 subscribers on YouTube and 4 million Instagram followers.
In a DailyMail story published in March (2024), the findings of a recent report demonstrated that Spiranac’s work in the Creative Economy dominates that of top professional golfers. “Recent research shows that in the age of the golf influencer, Spiranac leads the social media sensations who are rivalling (sic)—if not beating—the average PGA Tour player for influence.” The story hinted there could be more money to be made for successful influencers in the Creative Economy than for pro sports stars themselves.
The Creative Economy and sports have a long history—a story that will only become deeper and more connected as people transform the way they view and engage with sports and its star athletes change.
In the aforementioned Medium article, Peter Abraham said, “…it is worth celebrating the upside this diverse media landscape has created for sports leagues and events: there’s now opportunity to create deeper bonds with more passionate fans than ever before: podcasts, blogs, live streams, chat rooms, social media, athletes-as-creators…there’s so much that a fan can consume.”
To read more features from the Creative Economy Journal, visit here.
