Today, over 15,000 athletes — from All-Pros and All-Americans, to walk-on freshman fighting to make a roster —use Opendorse to fulfill social campaigns and publish posts on behalf of brand partners. Hundreds of sports teams and leagues use the platform to promote their property while empowering athletes to build their personal brands. Simultaneously, brands use the platform to access athletes and deliver campaigns that drive results by bringing their message to the fan’s favorite feed.
In this Partner Showcase, Adi Kunalic, the Co-Founder of Opendorse, walks through their athlete marketing playbook and platform.
Edited highlights appear below:
On athlete marketing’s place during and after the pandemic (4:30)
Kunalic: “Right now, if you remove games and these huge stadiums full of fans, there are only two things that are still trending up and being used and being leveraged more than anything. That’s digital and social sales/advertising and then athlete marketing. Athlete marketing is our world. That’s what we’ve been doing for close to a decade now.”
On how Opendorse can help athletes understand the impact of their social media (30:20)
Kunalic: “We give each athlete a breakdown of their channels. … Not only is that a grade that they can use, but we also break down, in the simplest terms, a to do list. If they want to have a better presence online, or on social, and really increase your name, image, and likeness value, your endorsement value, here are some easy to-dos that really make that work.”
On how big of a following an athlete must have to start using Opendorse (49:00)
Kunalic: “There’s no minimum size. Our vision for Opendorse has always been to help every athlete. … Athletes that have benefitted the most from Opendorse have been the ones where we already had an organization that was already sharing content through the platform so that athlete can then start receiving content. I would say that it doesn’t really matter how many followers they have. If they are looking to build their brand and improve how they are positioned on social, it is something that we can do.”
On college coaches helping athletes use the Opendorse platform (59:40)
Kunalic: “One of the things that we’ve been doing a lot recently is aligning ourselves with a lot of coaching staffs. [Assessments of players social presence] has been something that has been very helpful for coaches to give back to their athletes to say ‘here’s how your profiles rank’ and here are the things you can do. The world of NIL is coming. So for coaching staffs, I think the best thing you can do is to help educate your athletes on some of the things that are coming and we have a lot of different resources that we provide all of our coaching staff.”
