As an addendum to my recent articles about the rise of athlete influencers and coverage of the Super Bowl and upcoming FIFA World Cup by content creators, I thought I would talk about how streamers, content creators and influencer Olympians are changing the coverage of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in northern Italy. In a Winter Olympics that has had no shortage of viral moments, many content creators have flocked to the event for coverage and commentary, and athletes themselves have begun to pivot to content, offering a unique view of sporting events from the inside.

NBCUniversal has taken what used to be an informal swarm and given it a badge and a schedule. In announcing its Milan Cortina Creator Collective, NBCUniversal’s program with YouTube, Meta, and TikTok that would “empower over 25 creators” with on-the-ground access in Milan and Cortina, and it positioned the effort as a sequel to its Paris Creator Collective, which it says amassed nearly 300 million views. The Collective functions as a kind of auxiliary newsroom, except influencers are covering events, not reporters.

The athletes, meanwhile, are posting too, carrying a personal archive that extends past this Olympic season. Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who recently grabbed a gold medal in cross country skiing, is someone who has been chronicling life as an elite cross-country skier on social media since 2017. His YouTube channel blends lifestyle, training techniques, travel experiences, and partnerships, which places cross-country skiing inside a broader self-portrait instead of a results-only narrative. If you are used to Olympic coverage that treats athletes as intermittent guests in someone else’s programming, Klæbo’s long-running channel suggests a different hierarchy, where the athlete’s season is the main text and the broadcast is a powerful annotation.

Speed skating supplies a sharper, brighter version of the same phenomenon. Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam, called a “social media queen” by Reuters, reports she has over six million followers on Instagram, and quotes her describing social media as a tool to motivate young girls to take up speed skating. Outlets were criticized when articles about Leerdam’s gold medal had headlines that focused more on her relationship with her boyfriend, boxer and influencer Jake Paul, than her own athletic achievements. Leerdam won the women’s 1,000 meters in Olympic record time of 1:12.31 and added a silver medal in the 500 meters.

Eileen Gu remains the cleanest financial diagram for why athletes behave this way, even when the content itself looks casual. According to Forbes, Gu earned $100,000 from her sport last year while making $23 million through endorsements and social media influencer work. When talking to Northeastern Global News, marketing professor Amy Pei described the phenomenon; “Social media shifts athlete marketing from rare, brand-controlled visibility to continuous, athlete-controlled storytelling. In the past, brands decided who was visible by hiring them as endorsers. Now, athletes can build audiences first and attract partnership deals later.”

Not all creators at the Winter Olympics have press passes. The travel creator The Traveling ZAM posted a video from Cortina that is explicitly structured around moving through the Olympic setting, describing attendance at curling and luge events, time spent exploring venues, and the atmosphere of the alpine host town during the Games. The details in the video description are ordinary by design, and that ordinariness is the point: it is coverage built from transit, signage, queues, and the feeling of entering an arena rather than the moment of winning it. On TikTok, creator Desi Johnson posted a video titled “Discover the Olympic Village for Milan-Cortina 2026,” allowing viewers to explore the Village virtually for themselves.

For streaming, Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra devices, supported by OBS, were embedded within the Opening Ceremony to capture “dynamic perspectives” alongside traditional broadcast cameras. Milano Cortina is hosting multiple authors at once, each with a different contract with the audience. NBC formalizes a creator lane, athletes like Klæbo arrive with years of self-documentation. When the Winter Games are experienced through these parallel feeds, the public record becomes less singular, more like a stack of drafts, and the draft that circulates farthest is usually the one that already fits the viewer’s habits.

James Lewis

See Full Bio

The largest advertising company in the world, Publicis Groupe, just announced a new offering to connect brands with sports influencers. Influential Sport is a combination of the French company’s flagship Publicis Sports and their recent acquisition Influential, a talent agency for influencers. The announcement is one of many signals that a shift is happening in sports media. The traditional sports broadcast model still drives the biggest live games, but more of the day-to-day sports audience and advertising value is now being captured through athlete and creator channels on social platforms. That change shows up in how colleges, brands, and media companies are organizing around athletes as publishers, not just performers.

A clear inflection point in the U.S. came after the NCAA changed name, image and likeness rules in 2021, allowing college athletes to earn money from things like endorsements and their own personal brands, ways that had previously been strictly forbidden. The New York Times reported on a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill backed-initiative designed to help all of its 850 student-athletes participate in influencer-style content and brand work, with the school framing it as beneficial for recruiting, fan engagement, and revenue. The same reporting described brands paying student-athletes for routine content such as “game-day outfits” and “daily routines,” illustrating that NIL income is not limited to highlight-reel stars when a creator can consistently produce sponsor-friendly posts.

The economic context is no longer speculative because influencer marketing budgets are tracked and forecast like other ad channels. Jay Pattisall, vice president and senior agency analyst at research and advisory firm Forrester, told Digiday – “Sports are the last and most consistent shared experience for U.S. consumers…Marketers are keen to take advantage of the mass interest.” Influencer campaign marketplace Collabstr’s 2025 Influencer Marketing Report projects global influencer marketing will reach $22.2 billion in 2025 and estimates the broader creator economy will grow from $191 billion in 2025 to $528.39 billion by 2030, with high audience intensity in Athletes and Sports. Additionally, college athlete-influencers average a reported 10–15% engagement, significantly higher than standard content creators.

USC Annenberg’s Norman Lear Center studied athlete-owned media, identifying over 30 athlete-owned production companies, focusing on building direct-to-fan revenue streams rather than relying on traditional media distributors. Sports leagues are also working with non-athlete sports creators when the goal is reach and format innovation. The revenue structure for most sports influencers is not a single endorsement contract. Brands increasingly want integrated packages that follow athletes across channels, which pushes the market toward bundles that include creator-led social distribution rather than treating it as a side add-on. YouTuber Jesser has a number of collaborations with the NBA, extending the league’s presence to audiences that may not consume traditional broadcasts. 

Traditional media companies have responded by repositioning around services and infrastructure rather than pure distribution control. The measurable change is who owns the fan relationship day to day. In 2026, athletes and creators with direct channels increasingly have direct access to an audience that used to be mediated primarily through leagues and broadcasters.

James Lewis

See Full Bio

IShowSpeed’s rise to fame has been defined by his brash, magnetic personality and his unpredictability. But over the past two years, one theme has consistently broken through the noise: football (soccer). What began as exaggerated Ronaldo fandom on his Twitch streams has expanded into a roaming series of stadium appearances across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the U.S., turning Speed into a walking crossover between internet culture and global sport.

Speed’s football arc started with Cristiano Ronaldo. His over-the-top devotion, including chants, jerseys, and emotional reactions, made him a recurring meme within football circles. That fandom paid off when Speed eventually met Ronaldo in person, a moment that validated years of performative loyalty and pushed his football content into a new tier of legitimacy.

He then appeared at high-profile matches and stadiums tied to global football’s biggest institutions,travelling to Europe to attend club matches, making appearances around international tournaments, and continued building his fascination with Lionel Messi. Speed’s arrival at stadiums often triggered crowd surges, security concerns, and spontaneous chants. Fans treated the streamer less like a guest and more like a celebrity athlete, with phones raised and streams clipped within minutes. In several cities, his presence eclipsed the match itself on social platforms, with Speed-centric clips outperforming official highlights.

Beyond Europe, Speed leaned into football as a global language. Stops in Africa and the Middle East highlighted how widely his content travels, especially among younger audiences who engage with both football and livestream culture daily. In these regions, stadium visits doubled as cultural exchanges, with Speed playing pickup games, meeting local fans, and showcasing football’s grassroots energy.

In February 2023, Speed’s football life moved from the screen to the stands when he attended Manchester United games in person, both at Old Trafford and during the club’s preseason tour of the United States. These trips produced clips of him chanting in the concourse, reacting to goals in real time, and appearing alongside fan channels that treat him as an extension of the matchday atmosphere.That same year, he broadened his stadium footprint with visits to grounds like Fulham FC’s Craven Cottage stadium in London. For many viewers, these were the first times they saw a streamer occupying the same physical space as the clubs he usually watched through a monitor.

On February 23, 2024, he crossed from spectator to player in Match for Hope 2024 at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Qatar, a charity fixture that placed creators and retired stars in the same 11‑a‑side game. The event drew more than 34,000 fans in the stands and a large live audience online while raising money for education projects through the Education Above All Foundation. Speed’s on‑pitch antics, celebrations, and missed chances became as shareable as the legends’ highlights, proving he could hold attention in a proper stadium setting even when the football was scripted around charity.

In 2024 he also spent time in North Africa and the Middle East around domestic and regional competitions, treating those trips as proof that his football fandom was not limited to Europe. During the Algerian Super Cup between MC Alger and USM Alger he was forced to leave the stadium early after sections of the crowd began throwing objects in his direction, turning a routine cup final into an unplanned commentary on what happens when influencer fame collides with local ultras. Even that early exit became part of the story his viewers followed, replayed as another unpredictable twist in his global football arc.

Match for Hope returned on February 14, 2025, this time at Stadium 974 in Doha, with Speed cast as one of the key creator attractions. Billed as part of “Team Chunkz x IShowSpeed” against “Team KSI x AboFlah,” he shared the pitch with Thierry Henry, Andrés Iniesta, David Silva, Alessandro Del Piero, and Andrea Pirlo in front of tens of thousands of fans and a broadcast package that included a halftime performance from Macklemore. The promotional materials explicitly paired his name with those of Champions League winners, signaling that for organizers and sponsors he was now an asset on par with retired legends when it came to drawing a crowd.

Less than a month later he stepped into an even bigger arena at the 2025 Sidemen Charity Match, held for the first time at Wembley Stadium. Playing as captain of the YouTube Allstars in front of roughly 90,000 fans, he helped his side to a 9–9 draw before winning 5–4 on penalties, lifting the trophy after converting in the shootout. The match raised millions for charity and delivered over 14 million live views on YouTube, with post‑match coverage treating Speed’s performance and celebration as the emotional high point of the day. 

By mid‑2025, his stadium stops started to overlap directly with football’s biggest individual rivalry. In June he attended an Inter Miami Club World Cup match and deliberately wore a Ronaldo shirt in the stands while watching Lionel Messi walk out for kickoff. The image of a known Ronaldo superfan cheering at a Messi game in the “wrong” jersey traveled quickly through football social accounts, turning a routine tournament fixture into another entry in Speed’s ongoing bit about picking sides in the GOAT debate.

Outside Europe and the Gulf, he continued to chase Ronaldo’s club career into Saudi Arabia. In October 2025 he streamed live from Al Awwal Park for Al Nassr vs. Al Fateh, pointing his camera at the pitch as his audience watched Ronaldo’s warm‑ups and walk‑out through his point of view. The Sportskeeda report on the stream emphasized not just his presence in the stadium but the fact that tens of thousands of concurrent viewers were effectively attending the Pro League match through a creator feed instead of a traditional rights‑holder broadcast.

Most recently, his football travel has moved into international tournament territory. In January 2026, on his Speed Does Africa tour, he appeared at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat to watch Senegal vs. Morocco at AFCON, joining a crowd that local coverage described as highly anticipatory even before factoring in his arrival. Clips from the night, including fans surrounding him in the stands and organizers bracing for his rumored return for the AFCON final, show how his presence can now sit alongside presidents and VIPs on lists of expected “global figures” at major matches.

He shows up, fans react, and the internet does the rest. In a media landscape where access is often controlled and sanitized, Speed has carved out a lane built on raw enthusiasm and global mobility. Every match he “crashes” reinforces a simple reality: in modern sports culture, creators are no longer on the sidelines.

James Lewis

See Full Bio