Marketing Personality in Sports: Why We Care That Aaron Rogers is a Swiftie
In May of 2023, the New York Jets official TikTok page (@nyjets) posted a video for a social media content series called “Mini Mic.” The premise is simple. Holding miniature lavalier microphones, each player answers the simple question: “What is your favorite Taylor Swift song?”
Most players responded with typical hits like “22,” “Shake It Off,” and “Love Story,” quickly replying into the mic before returning to whatever activities they were participating in around the practice facility. Some players, however, went beyond the basics. Aaron Rogers, for example, the seasoned NFL star quarterback of the team at the time, responded enthusiastically, “Too many. Too many to count,” adding, “Anything from Folklore.” Throughout the short video, clips from Rogers’ interview came in and out as he continued to list deep cuts that came to mind. Today, the video boasts 471.6k likes, 437k shares, and 4,112 comments, most of which showcasing a successful reaching of the target audience for the content. A comment reading, “All the folklore boys are GREEN FLAGS,” has 10.9k likes. Other top comments share similar sentiments, reading things like, “Jets passed the good vibe test,” “Who knew I had so much in common with Aaron Rodgers 🥲,” and “I guess I’m an Aaron Rogers fan ????”
As a Taylor Swift fan and a passive, occasional viewer of the NFL, videos like these are prone to grabbing my attention, leaving me with new opinions of players and teams that I would not have thought about had I not stumbled upon the content. This video and the hundreds of others like it from teams across leagues and locales reflect an overall shift in the digital marketing strategies of sports organizations across the board. A large focus now of the content produced for social media is expansion of audience beyond the “typical” fan demographics. They achieve this through highlighting unexpected or ironic aspects of player’s personalities. This Jets TikTok and others within the category, including “What’s Your Favorite Beyonce Song?” and “Tell Us Your Favorite Movie Without Saying The Title,” are compelling because athletes are often blankly associated with masculinity, little emotional displays, and all personality revolving around the sport. Taylor Swift and the world around her possess entirely opposite associations. Thus, Jets fans get a look into the real, “off-the field,” personalities of their team, Taylor Swift fans gain a soft spot for many of the deep-cut-naming players, and anyone on TikTok who gets this video on their For You Page gets exposed to—even for a brief moment—the New York Jets as a team.
Of course, the NY Jets TikTok page is not solely asking the players silly questions to solicit a reaction from a wider target audience; the page is filled out by game highlights, uniform reveals, and a range of other, more “on-brand” fan-focused athletic content. The most popular videos, however, are the ones that do go outside of the niche. The same is true for other teams that follow this trend of personality content, including my home MLB team, the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies' “Mic’d Up” series, where they place mini microphones on players in the field, has amassed overwhelmingly positive reactions from both fans and outsiders who comment on the quirky personalities of players that aren't typically seen when playing.
This social strategy of leveraging athlete personalities is part of the larger efforts that go into athlete branding, something that the sports organizations take partial responsibility for as “hosts” of the players contracted to them. Today’s sports marketing professionals note that athlete branding is one of the most powerful tools allowing teams to position their narratives beyond wins and losses, an issue marketing teams can run into when promoting an organization. In today’s social media age, fans express loyalty not just to a franchise but to the people who represent it, and social platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels are the arenas where those connections are forged and measured in real time.
Importantly, this trend isn’t confined to superstars with multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals. Organizations at every level are increasingly aware that authenticity works (whether forged or not, which is a common criticism of this type of marketing), especially with younger, digitally native audiences. The Instagram page of NYU’s Men's Volleyball Team is an example of this marketing strategy infiltrating sports even at the collegiate level, with multiple videos on Instagram showcasing players participating in the current dance trends, interviewing one another, and getting up to a wide range of other antics, attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers, likes, and comments from an audience entirely beyond just the NYU student population. In terms of impressions and followers, this strategy is immensely effective at grabbing attention and keeping it.
Of course, there is a balance to strike. Not every piece of content from a sports organization should be a personality feature, as with every marketing tactic, authenticity can turn forced fast. In addition, for most die-hard fans, season highlights and analytical breakdowns remain core to their fan experience. Still, this new era of athlete content has clearly made its mark on the broader marketing landscape, and the results reflect success. So, next time you find yourself locked into a video of NFL players sharing whether they are “Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah,” know that you are being targeted by the marketing powers that be.
