Our founder and CEO, Bob Lynch, shared insights on TikTok’s impact in the sponsorship world:

The Supreme Court deliberations on TikTok will have a huge ripple effect on the college athlete creator economy, as well as athletes overall. Here's why:

It plays a massive part in deals and exposure: 22% of NIL deals and 40% of all social media engagements for high school and college athletes originate on TikTok this year and that's increased by 73% YoY in terms of engagement!

Some athletes will feel the pain more than others - there are more than 700 with deals - but here's few notable athletes thriving on TikTok:

- Ilona Maher: 14 brand deals, 5M engagements.

- Paige Bueckers: 9 brand deals, 2.2M engagements.

- Angel Reese: 17 brand deals, 1.9M engagements.

- Jake Paul: 3 brand deals, 2.9M engagements.

A handful of industries dominate the space, here are 3 that make up over half all all posts:

 1. Apparel & Accessories: 20% of all posts.

 2. Food & Beverages: 18%.

 3. Consumer Products: 14%.

Marketers would have to shift their athlete content strategies, including these most active brands:

 1. adidas: 46 athletes.

 2. Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers Cane’s: 37 athletes.

 3. Red Bull: 31 athletes.

 4. VKTRY Gear: 23 athletes.

 5. JBL Professional: 21 athletes.

So what's next? 

A ban would trigger an industry-wide recalibration, with athletes and brands leaning much more into Instagram or YouTube, which would also likely lead to diminished engagement as that as TikTok's strength (5% of athlete followers on average engage with their endorsement posts!)

The question is going to be how quickly marketers and athletes can evolve to maintain engagement and ROI in a potential post-TikTok world. We'll be following closely should that happen.

Featured in Front Office Sports, Bob Lynch shared, “about 40% of all social engagement on brand-promoted posts for high school and college athletes come via TikTok.” Read more insights in the full article: Front Office Sports article

See Bob’s LinkedIn post here.