Why this report matters

The influencer marketing industry is at a turning point most brands have not addressed yet. After years of chasing follower counts and average engagement rates, many are quietly realizing the metrics they built their strategies around were not telling the full story.

OpenSponsorship is the world's largest athlete marketing platform, connecting brands with 25,000+ professional athletes, influencers, podcasters, and creators across 160 sports and 120 countries. Launched in 2015 and backed by Serena Williams and David Blitzer, we have brokered over 9,000 accepted deals and 8,000+ successful brand-creator matches — giving us the largest proprietary dataset in athlete marketing.

This report draws on a decade of deal data and our analysis of more than 14.9 million pieces of creator content. Our goal is straightforward: to give brand marketers the clearest possible picture of what is actually working in athlete and influencer marketing in 2026, and what is not.

"The brands winning in influencer marketing in 2026 are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones asking better questions." — Ishveen Jolly, Founder & CEO, OpenSponsorship

Five shifts every brand needs to understand in 2026

1. Why average engagement rate is the wrong metric, and what to use instead
2. Why athletes continue to outperform traditional influencers on the metrics that matter
3. How the creator mix is expanding beyond sport
4. Why the 2026 sports calendar represents a once-in-a-generation brand opportunity
5. How to structure influencer campaigns for real ROI

Section 1

The measurement problem

Why average engagement rate is failing brands

Ask any brand marketer how they evaluate a potential influencer partner and the answer is almost always the same: average engagement rate. It is everywhere, easy to compare, and in our experience almost completely useless as a predictor of campaign success.

A creator's average engagement rate is calculated across all of their content — every post, regardless of topic, format, or audience relevance. That average flattens everything and hides the signal that actually matters: how does this creator perform when they post about something relevant to your brand?

After analyzing more than 14.9 million pieces of content, we have found that the gap between a creator's average engagement rate and their topic-specific engagement rate can be 4x or higher. That is not a marginal difference. It is the difference between a campaign that drives real results and one that burns through budget.

A real-world example

Consider a brand in the women's health space evaluating two athlete partners. Athlete A has a 4% average engagement rate. Athlete B averages 1% across her account. Most brands would call Athlete A.

But what if Athlete B regularly posts about hormonal health and menopause? On those specific posts, her engagement rate hits 6% — six times her account average — because her audience is deeply invested in exactly that content. For a women's health brand, Athlete B is the far stronger choice. Average engagement rate would never surface her.

"The creators that are perfect for your brand may be hiding behind unremarkable averages."

Section 2

Why athletes still win

The authenticity advantage

Athletes have something that is genuinely hard to fake in today's creator economy: influence that was earned before they ever posted a piece of sponsored content. They have a following, command attention, and have earned trust organically — because of what they have done in public, under pressure, in real time.

Our platform data across 14.9 million posts confirms a consistent and widening performance gap between athletes and traditional influencers.

10.97% versus 4.92% is more than a 2x performance advantage for athletes across our platform. This is not a marginal edge — it is a structural advantage built on earned trust and authentic community.

The ROI case

Marketing budgets are under more scrutiny than ever in 2026. Athlete partnerships consistently deliver:

Platform data snapshot

Our proprietary deal data reveals clear patterns in what brands are buying and how campaigns are performing in 2026. Average deal size on our platform grew from approximately $2,500 in 2024 to $5,147 in 2025 — a 100% year-over-year increase. That growth reflects two things: brands are coming to us with bigger budgets, and full-service managed campaigns are commanding higher investment than self-serve ever did.

The 7x growth in non-athlete deals between 2024 and 2025 is the single most significant trend in our platform data. Brands are rapidly expanding their definition of what makes a valuable creator partner — and the results are validating that expansion.

Section 3

The expanding creator mix

Beyond the athlete

OpenSponsorship launched in 2015 with a simple tagline: athletes are vastly underused marketing assets. That remains mostly true today. Since then, the creator economy has evolved and the biggest brands are thinking beyond traditional categories.

By 2025, 75% of OpenSponsorship activations went to female athletes, fueled in part by explosive growth in women's sports. Female athletes produce higher-quality engagement content, and more of it. Track & Field and Golf lead in deal volume. Marathon runners are emerging as the breakout category of 2026.

The new creator categories

• Health and Wellness creators. The fastest-growing non-sport segment on the platform in 2026. Brands in supplements, women's health, fitness, and longevity are finding that wellness creators — especially women over 40 sharing content about menopause, hormones, and longevity — are generating extraordinary engagement with highly purchase-ready audiences.
• Podcast partners. The rise of athlete-hosted podcasts has ushered in a new sponsorship opportunity that merges the trust factor of athlete endorsement with long-form audio engagement. Brands are increasingly building packages that include social content and podcast placement.
• Lifestyle and niche creators. From financial influencers to outdoor sports enthusiasts to comedians with athlete-adjacent audiences, the common thread is not the category — it is the authenticity of the connection between creator and audience.
• NIL college athletes. The NIL era has opened up thousands of college athletes as viable brand partners. Despite having little to no formal content strategy, NIL athletes consistently outperform expectations because their enthusiasm is real and their audiences are highly engaged.

The 40-plus female market: the biggest opportunity most brands are missing

Women over 40 are one of the highest-spending, most loyal audiences across consumer marketing — and remain drastically underserved by an influencer marketing industry that favors younger, more aspirational audiences.

Our social listening tool scans for creators outside our community who are already organically creating content around topics like menopause, heart health, hormonal fitness, and longevity. Many have mid-sized but extremely engaged audiences and are seeing campaign performance far exceed industry benchmarks.

"The brands getting it right are not looking for the biggest name. They are looking for the most relevant audience."

Section 4

The 2026 sports opportunity

The biggest sports year in a generation

2026 is shaping up to be the most commercially significant year in sports marketing history. The FIFA World Cup comes to North America this summer, spanning the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina has already driven record brand investment. The NBA, NFL, and WNBA all enter critical commercial moments. Women's sports leagues continue to grow at rates nobody predicted five years ago.

For brands with athlete marketing programs — or brands considering entering the space — the opportunity window is now. Brands that build their athlete and creator rosters ahead of the summer World Cup will be significantly better positioned than those who wait.

Women's sports: the commercial moment has arrived

The data tells a clear story. Women's sports are no longer an emerging market — they are a growth market. WNBA viewership records have been broken. Women's soccer, basketball, tennis, and track are commanding audiences that brands would have dismissed a decade ago. On our platform, female athlete deal volume has reached 75% of all deals.

NIL in 2026: what brands need to know

• Volume is a strategy. Brands like Vitamin Shoppe have successfully activated 120-plus college athletes simultaneously, creating a wave of authentic content at scale that no single macro-influencer can replicate.
• Authenticity over polish. The content that performs best from NIL athletes is consistently the least staged. Sports audiences gravitate to raw enthusiasm, not scripted endorsements.
• Values over reach. When brands focus on athletes' values — discipline, teamwork, resilience — rather than just follower counts, they see significantly stronger brand affinity metrics.

Section 5

Building campaigns that deliver ROI

The full-service advantage

The performance gap between managed and self-managed campaigns shows up consistently in our data. When brands handle outreach, negotiation, briefing, and delivery on their own, results suffer. Not occasionally — consistently.

This is why we moved from a self-service marketplace to a full-service, tech-enabled model. The data made the decision for us. When clients partner with us from creator selection to content delivery and ROI reporting, campaigns perform better, brands stick around longer, and results compound. Average deal size grew 100% from 2024 to 2025. Average social posts per deal grew from 2.9 to 3.5 — a 20% increase reflecting deeper creator engagement and more robust campaign execution.

Five principles for high-ROI athlete campaigns

1. Match on topic, not just audience size. Dig into post-level engagement to find creators who have demonstrated real resonance with your category.
2. Think beyond the post. Creator content is a starting point, not a completed campaign. Reinvent it for paid social, your website, email, PR. The right creator content can create 10x value when strategically amplified.
3. Define success before you start. Brand awareness, trial, UGC, audience reach — the answer dictates the creators, briefs, and metrics.
4. Treat the first deal as a test. Set clear objectives, measure transparently, and let the data inform the next campaign. The brands seeing the highest long-term ROI are the ones who iterate.
5. Build toward long-term relationships. One-off deals can work, but recurring partnerships with creators who genuinely use and believe in your product are where athlete sponsorship truly separates itself from other channels.

"The match is just the beginning. Making the partnership actually work is the hard part, and that is where most brands leave value on the table."

What a strong campaign looks like

Hugo Boss came to us to launch a new fragrance, activating with top NBA and NFL athletes. The campaign performed well enough that they re-signed before the results report was even finalized, with 2026 campaigns already in motion around the NFL Combine and Draft. That cycle of performance, learning, and reinvestment is what athlete sponsorship looks like when it is working.

What to do next

The shift does not start with technology or budget. It starts with asking better questions. Who has the most relevant audience for my product, not the most followers? What does this creator post about when no one is paying them? What does the data show at post level, not account level?

1. Stop measuring averages and start measuring relevance. Pull post-level engagement data on topics that matter to your brand. A creator averaging 1% may hit 6% on the exact content your audience cares about.
2. Build a creator roster, not just a campaign. One-off deals produce one-off results. The brands compounding ROI year over year treat creators as long-term partners.
3. Act on 2026 now, not in Q3. The FIFA World Cup, the continued explosion of women's sports, and the maturing NIL market are converging this year in a way that will not happen again for a long time.
4. Look where others are not looking. Marathon runners. Women over 40 posting about menopause and hormonal health. NIL college athletes. Golf. Not the obvious choices — which is exactly why they are outperforming the obvious ones.
5. Go full-service or go deep on your own expertise. The performance gap between managed and self-managed campaigns in our data is significant and consistent.

Get the full 2026 report

All five sections, all proprietary platform data, every chart and creator category breakdown — no email required.

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About OpenSponsorship

OpenSponsorship is the world's largest athlete marketing platform, connecting 25,000+ athletes and creators with brands across 160 sports and 120 countries. Launched in 2015, the company has brokered over 9,000 accepted deals and 8,000+ successful brand-creator matches, giving it the largest proprietary dataset in athlete marketing. OpenSponsorship became profitable in 2024 and had its best year on record in 2025, growing revenue by 200% year-over-year. Ishveen Jolly — backed by investors Serena Williams and David Blitzer — is the Founder and CEO of OpenSponsorship, winner of SBJ Game Changer 2025 and Forbes 30 Under 30.

Press & media inquiries

For interviews, additional data, or commentary from CEO Ishveen Jolly, contact ishveen@opensponsorship.com.