Social media helps athletes get sponsors

NEW YORK— A gold medal used to be the golden ticket for lucrative endorsements — think Mary Lou Retton on a Wheaties box.

But in the age of social media, athletes are making a name for themselves well ahead of time. Even more so than in Rio in 2016 and Sochi in 2014, Pyeongchang athletes are Olympian at building brands.

Before breakout star Chloe Kim won gold in snowboarding halfpipe, her infectious personality and heartwarming origin story had already won her sponsorships from Toyota, Samsung, Visa and others.

Of course, winning a gold medal amplifies an athlete’s reach.

When Kim started the Olympics, she had15,000 Twitter followers. She now has more than 285,000.

She charmed thousands with tweets about eating ice cream and churros and being “hangry” because she didn’t finish breakfast before her race.

Christopher R. Chase, a specialist in high-profile sports marketing at the Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz law firm, estimates the 17-year-old Kim could be worth “in the high hundreds of thousands” or even the low millions of dollars, propelled in part by her achievements off the slope.

For athletes, medals are icing on the cake, no longer the sole reason for endorsements. And medal winners without a good personality might have trouble finding sponsors.

“The more medals, the more coverage, the more salient these people are” for endorsement consideration, said Will Davie, a group strategy director at ad agency Droga5.

“But how smart, how engaging they are in social media and the image they cultivate is starting to become more and more important.”

Peter Carlisle, who oversees the Olympics and Action Sports division at the marketing firm Octagon, said social media is a big factor.

“Any athlete or celebrity that has an influential social media footprint certainly can commercialize that.”