What does sports look like today? Sports have always been a large part of national cultures and societies but today sports have evolved to become major global cultural phenomenon. Today sports like Soccer and Basketball and Tennis have billions of fans across the world,^[1] and other sports like Baseball and American Football have hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. According to a report from Research and Markets the sports industry was valued at $488.5 billion in 2018 and is projected to be valued at $614.1 billion by 2022^[2] even Esports has seen rapid growth over the past decade to become one of the most popular in the world with an estimated 600 million fans world wide and generating $1.5 billion in annual revenue. Sports’ growth into global entities have made them into major economic forces as viewership numbers grow, and players become global icons whose words have great impact and whose merchandise spreads throughout the world. There are many ways to look at how sports have evolved to reach the current level of integration with the global economy. This paper will be looking at how athletes have become global figures that help shape their own brands, and then how sports brands and branding have evolved over time.

The evolution of sports into global entities has also seen the evolution of athletes into global icons and figures. Athletes today are no longer simply national figures in the places they play, today they are known globally with millions of fans and massive platforms. One of the earliest and most famous athletes to reach the global level was Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan. Jordan played from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s and is widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time. Jordan reached his peak as a player and as a global icon in the 1990s where he led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA finals winning all of them. This performance combined with Jordan’s partnership with Nike helped to elevate Jordan and the NBA to global heights and was a major part in the elevation of athletes to global figures. One of the major factors in the rise of global athletes has been the rise of social media. Social media allowed for players to better control their own images and brands and offered them more direct connection with their fans. The undisputed king of athletes on social media is Juventus F.C.’s star forward Christiano Ronaldo who has amassed a massive following of over 200 Million followers on Twitter and Instagram. Ronaldo serves as a perfect example of the modern athlete as a global figure as Ronaldo is among the best and most popular players in the most popular sport in the world and he has used this platform to not only promote his brand but to also raise awareness of global issues.

The other major athlete that has contributed to the evolution of athletes into global figures is Los Angeles Lakers star forward LeBron James who has become a global athlete on the same level as Michael Jordan but has used his platform to raise awareness of many social issues including police brutality and systemic racism as well as gun violence and education in the United States.

LeBron James is one among many North American Athletes who have used their platforms on social media they earned from sports to speak out against and raise awareness of social issues. Famously in 2016 Sanfrancisco Giants Quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the United States National anthem as a means of raising awareness of police brutality, and has not been signed to a team since. That same year LeBron James along with fellow star players, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwyane Wade gave a speech at the ESPYS talking about police brutality and racism in the United States. There have also been athletes who have spoken out on international issues such as Boston Celtics Center Enes Kanter who is originally from Turkey and is known for speaking out against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his authoritarian regime in Turkey. All of these athletes have used social media to spread their messages and raise awareness for issues and these actions have contributed to the rise of athletes as global figures and leaders whose opinions fans respect and look for on issues.

The rise of sports into global entities has also changed sports brands and branding. Athletes today more than ever have greater control over their own images and their own personal brands. The rise of social media has given players and franchises more direct access to fans than ever before and this allows them to fully control their image and their brand in a way that was not possible without social media.

In the modern era purchasing a player or team’s jersey makes you a part of a global brand but that isn’t the only way to participate in these brands. Now following teams and players on social media and uploading pictures of you at games or in team or player apparel makes you a part of that brand and helps to spread it throughout the world. Sports fandom has evolved to be part of global branding and has helped in the rapid globalization of sports as now fans in other countries help spread their teams brands throughout the world.

One of the other areas that has seen a major shift throughout sports has been in player value in transfer markets. In the NBA over the past 20 years player contract values have drastically increased with contracts becoming much more lucrative. The best example of this is the supermax contract whereby a team can offer a 5 year maximum deal to a player who has been on the team for 7 to 8 years and has made an all-star team or all-nba team. This type of contract emphasizes the concept of a “franchise” player who is part of that team’s brand. Transfer value is also a way of measuring not only the growth of player’s values over time but also in league revenue growth as in sports with salary caps like NBA basketball and NHL Ice hockey the growth of player contracts under the salary cap is directly related to the league’s value growth over time. One of the best recent examples of a player transfer impacting the team they are traded to is the 2018 transfer of Real Madrid forward Christiano Ronaldo to Italian club Juventus for a €100 million. This transfer ended up being highly lucrative almost immediately as according to CNBC Juventus Sold €60 million in Ronaldo jerseys within 24 hours of the jerseys becoming available^[1]. This transfer and others like it represent how athletes can directly impact the sales and growth of a team’s brand through simply arriving on the team as the Ronaldo example shows, the “hype” around Ronaldo on Juventus was enough to generate €60 million in sales revenue before Ronaldo had even played a game for Juventus.

The other major aspect that has impacted growth of globalization has been television and streaming services that offer greater numbers of people the ability to watch their favorite teams and sports when and where they want and the spread of satellite television and the internet has allowed for this to occur on greater scales than before. One example of this is the UEFA Champions League Series which since 2003 has seen a massive increase in revenue generated through television broadcasting reaching values of €1.7 Billion in 2017 compared to €451 million in 2003. The UEFA Champions League is only one example of this but there have been a number of other examples of sporting events spiking in viewership and revenue from television broadcasting since the early 2000s.

The rise of accessibility of satellite television throughout the world has contributed to this growth but so too has the emergence of global brands for teams who have expanded their fan bases throughout the world. Take for example Spanish football club Barcelona which in 2020 was the highest selling soccer jersey in the world^[1], or how a team from the NBA like the Houston Rockets has a massive following in China because of their selection of seven foot six Chinese phenom Yao Ming and just by association with him other players like Tracy McGrady were routinely among the top 3 in sales in China throughout his time on the Rockets and even for a period afterward. The evolution of sports athletes into international and global figures has greatly influenced and impacted the evolution of sports teams and their brands as they have become globally recognized and more widespread.

As technology like streaming services and television become more developed and more available, we may see further growth for sports in countries that have not had as much access to sports as other countries have had. This spread will further help the growth of sports into larger global entities and increase the value of the sports market and make it have a larger role in the global economy. One area that could also see greater development in the future with the further rise of global sports is the way that sports on a global stage impacts international relations. At first this idea may seem strange to some as there may be no immediate connection drawn between sports and international relations however, it can be argued that this has already happened in the past during a time when sports were less global than they are now. It can also be argued that today’s athletes using their platforms to raise awareness of social and political issues is the early stages of sports coming to impact international relations especially now in the modern day as athletes from all over the world have begun to stand in support of the ideas of the Black Lives Matter movement that has seen a resurgence in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. This movement can be seen as the first of many and could set the stage for further movements centered around social change brought around the world through sports.

Sports have evolved over the last thirty years to become global entities that are intertwined with the global market and global economics. Athletes today have become global icons that control their own brands turning them into global brands, athletes have also begun to use their platforms achieved through their growth into global entities to raise awareness of and speak out against social injustices. Sports brands have also evolved into massive global entities as teams outgrow their domestic fan bases and expand into their global fan bases. The growth of sports and athletes into global figures has been enabled by the spread of television and social media throughout the world which has removed the borders from sports teams and athletes and allowed them to spread across the globe in ways that weren’t possible before. Today with the evolution of sports brands through the use of social media it is easier than ever to become a part of these global brands and thus become further involved in the international political economy of everyday life.