The Next Sports Star Generation Isn’t Playing in the Big Leagues

The line between fashion, sport and leisure has never been more blurred. Award-winning actors are now just as well-known for their podcasts, TikTok stars are releasing Grammy-nominated albums and NBA gamers are modeling for underwear firms. You could argue that this dilutes the worth of fame, but another perspective is that it creates new worth propositions that merely weren’t accessible before. 

Jack Liechtung, founder of athlete management and model partnerships company Canopy Talent, believes the latter.

“Our thesis has always been: these athletes that we work with on a day-to-day basis are far more than just the sport they play,” Liechtung tells Entrepreneur. “Historically, people have looked to them as the bottom line of a balance sheet. So if their sport doesn’t make enough money, they’re kind of useless. I think that’s a terrible way to look at it.”

Chris Gay, president of high modeling firm The Society Management, which represents Kendall Jenner and Adriana Lima, sees a related alternative.

“What’s incredibly interesting from a collegiate and fashion standpoint is these kids have a really engaged following,” Gay tells Entrepreneur. “They don’t have to win the championship or play the biggest revenue sports. There’s a whole community of people deeply invested in the kid who is playing volleyball, the kid who’s playing water polo and so forth.”

Working primarily with collegiate athletes in missed sports activities like gymnastics, swimming, softball, and volleyball, Liechtung has seen firsthand just how vast the hole can be between their perceived model worth and their precise affect. “They have immense value and influence within their respective communities, and they’ve been speaking to their audiences about the brands and products they love and use outside of competition,” Liechtung says.

That shared philosophy has introduced the two firms collectively, establishing a first-of-its-kind partnership that gives the world’s main fashion, magnificence, and luxurious manufacturers access to the next era of collegiate athletes.

The stars beyond the scoreboard

For Liechtung, the partnership is a natural evolution of what he always envisioned for Canopy. The company was initially conceived in collaboration with another modeling company around an thought related to what Canopy is now doing with Society. But because that company wasn’t based mostly in the U.S., the partnership finally didn’t work. Still, Liechtung knew he was onto something.

“A modeling agency with brand partnerships and the prestige that far precedes our own existence is something that we wanted from the outset,” he says.

So Liechtung reached out to Gay on LinkedIn. “I had spoken with other modeling agencies, management companies, so I kind of knew what would hit, but I also knew that they were working with some pro NBA players, and I kind of tied in to that,” Liechtung shares.

“I also spoke a bit of his language. I worked at WME back in the day prior to going to law school, and spent summers working at fashion houses and with fashion designers.”

The two hopped on a couple of calls, then went months without talking before Gay circled back. When they finally met in particular person, they shortly realized just how carefully their visions aligned.

“I think this idea that these athletes are not bound strictly by the wins and losses in their sport was something that he really wanted to get behind,” Liechtung says. “But my co-founder and I saw this kind of intersection and overlap between sport and fashion from the outset. It just seemed super clear to us.”

Someone like Livvy Dunne is an instance of the potential this sort of partnership can unlock, but Liechtung factors to someone like skier Eileen Gu as a North Star for the project, noting the disconnect between her earnings from snowboarding and the scale of her fame.

He remembers a dialog at an occasion where one of his athlete creators, Major League Volleyball participant Merritt Beason, a former Nebraska star, came up.

“Someone overheard me talking about her, and they said, ‘Merritt Beason in Omaha is bigger than Patrick Mahomes,’” Liechtung remembers.

“These athletes are rock stars in their communities, and sometimes far beyond, and the people that follow them are deeply invested.” He notes that, on his roster, athlete creators’ engagement charges are roughly six instances greater than those of commonplace influencers. “It’s really wild how sticky these athletes are,” Lietchung provides.

The viewers is the asset

From Gay’s perspective, having a associate well-versed in the nuts and bolts of the advanced NIL panorama was important. But just as important was discovering someone who shared Society’s imaginative and prescient.

“We really just felt a certain kinship together when we started sort of discussing this deal,” Gay says. “I felt Jack was the perfect person and his company was the perfect company to go forward with it.”

Gay isn’t totally new to the athletic world. In another lifetime, he truly wished to become a sports activities agent.

“I was in school in Boston, and literally went to work at a tiny little modeling agency that represented some of the Red Sox players. And, like, legitimately, we were doing fashion shows for department stores,” he says, laughing.

Still, the expertise gave him an early schooling in the modeling business and ultimately led him to begin his own company. Along the method, he continued to work with athletes, including Angel Reese, whom he represented while she was at LSU.

At this level, Gay sees athletes and fashions as “extraordinarily similar,” in that both construct their own fan bases impartial of the group or company they work for.

“It’s more than just a passing deal that they’re doing, you know, with Gucci or with Nike,” Gay says. “This is their community. They’re bringing that to the table. There’s no intermediary.”

In the previous, he explains, a model deal with a company like Nike meant the model dealt with the media buy, distribution, and much of the connection with the viewers. Today, that dynamic has modified.

“The piece of content is often created by the athlete, model or entertainer, and then distributed out on their own platforms,” Gay says. 

This largely informs his and Lietchung’s strategy when approaching purchasers.

“The goal is never these one-off deals,” Lietchung explains. “I think an athlete could kind of source their own one-off deals. We’re trying to work with athletes that already have some sort of platform, a voice. We amplify that. We work with them to really sharpen that focus. It could be anything from faith to fashion to comedy, and we work with them to expand on that.” 

Liechtung’s background in company and leisure law comes in helpful when navigating the advanced guidelines and rules surrounding NIL — a time period he truly hates.

“I actually don’t call it NIL,” Liechtung says. “I think to the brand, they’ve kind of written it off historically as something that’s just far too complicated and messy.”

Instead, Liechtung and his group focus on educating manufacturers about the worth these athletes can deliver at both the collegiate and skilled ranges.

“You don’t need to partner with LeBron James to make an impact, to drive consumer spend, to get eyeballs.”

Expanding the taking part in subject

Under the deal, Canopy will serve as Society Management’s unique on-campus associate, offering the access and compliance instruments needed to operate within the collegiate surroundings. Canopy understands the NIL deal submission course of and has relationships with faculties that can help streamline communication and expedite approvals.

Liechtung believes that infrastructure will become more and more important as universities look to construct an athletic presence beyond soccer and basketball. The alternative, he argues, comes down to the basically completely different incentives going through athletes in less commercialized sports activities.

“Unlike the basketball and football players that have not been very incentivized to create content and kind of go get out of competition because they’re looking ahead at a pro contract, that was not the case for these other athletes,” Liechtung says. “Frankly, I did not want to be beholden to the ACL of an offensive lineman.”

As Gay sees it, the prospects are limitless.

“I think it’s incredibly dynamic because I think the needs of the brands that we work with are going to be very different than maybe some of the needs of the current type of brands that are engaging a collegiate athlete,” he says. “We’re going to be revealing a really different type of quality of content that’s going to be very different than the type of stuff that you might currently see.”

The line between fashion, sport and leisure has never been more blurred. Award-winning actors are now just as well-known for their podcasts, TikTok stars are releasing Grammy-nominated albums and NBA gamers are modeling for underwear firms. You could argue that this dilutes the worth of fame, but another perspective is that it creates new worth propositions that merely weren’t accessible before. 

Jack Liechtung, founder of athlete management and model partnerships company Canopy Talent, believes the latter.

“Our thesis has always been: these athletes that we work with on a day-to-day basis are far more than just the sport they play,” Liechtung tells Entrepreneur. “Historically, people have looked to them as the bottom line of a balance sheet. So if their sport doesn’t make enough money, they’re kind of useless. I think that’s a terrible way to look at it.”