The future of social media and sports sponsorships

If you are a professional or elite age group athlete, your sponsorship success is by large depending on the number of followers you have in the social media. Many may think that winning medals is important however, social media exposure is the key.

Unfortunately, facebook has now been over-populated with all sorts of advertisements, "friends" that are not really friends, optional "followers" and a whole lot of nonsense: from ugly sandwich pictures, to how much one loves their partner or how far and fast they ran and biked on their training day, how silly or smart Trump appears on TV and many other statements you are asked to like or share or comment if you agree or not.


Twitter is on a similar route just with a little more flexibility on how to filter your news feed. However, there is still a lot of random advertisement that you can't completely control.

Instagram is a little better off with emphasis on the pictures rather than the text: nowadays, people do not like to read anything that would take longer than 2 min! Unfortunately though, some ads would pop up once in a while in your feed!

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will die. They appeal to the 30-50 (maybe 50) years old generation. The youngsters are not into them and with all their nonsense and advertisement, soon the number of users will decline.

The sports industry would now have to find alternative ways for media exposure through their athletes.

It is a fact that information, advertisement and shopping will continue to expand through the digital route and the internet, so we just have yet to see the evolution of sports marketing. I personally believe that advertisement will be somehow automated, the same or better way than it has already started: while surfing on the web you can now see on the top or the bottom or left/right banner of your screen a variety of products you can buy that are personalized to your habits and interests. Amazon bought Whole Foods and sooner than we think, the online shopping will surpass (by a lot) the retail option.

If this is what's coming ahead, how would the sports industry react? Retail shops may turn into warehouses or repair facilities, and most purchases will be digital. For the athlete that represents sports products, this means that an updated, accurate and adaptive athletic e-profile will be the key.

Things change quickly and if the youngsters are doing one thing right now, they will be doing something else in a couple of years. One thing is for sure: the screen and the web will stay. Being up-to-date with your online profile is of great importance because trends will come and go but your exposure will be centralized in your page.

I can't wait to see the evolution of sports digital media coming ... I just hope that sports will not fade out and will not turn completely into a digital form of some sort ... I want to see people get out and have fun ... !