Post by Ayo Fapohunda

The next frontier of athlete representation isn’t contract negotiation. It’s digital reputation management. Megan Rapinoe’s recent revelation that she was removed from a World Cup commercial after AI reportedly flagged her as “high risk” should get the attention of every athlete, agent, brand manager, and sports executive. While the company and software remain unidentified, the broader trend is real: brands are increasingly using AI-powered tools to assess reputational risk before making endorsement decisions. For decades, an athlete’s value was built around performance, marketability, and public image. Today, there is another layer: algorithms that can aggregate years of interviews, podcasts, social media posts, news coverage, and public sentiment into a risk profile for a marketing team to review. Whether you agree or disagree with a particular athlete’s views isn’t really the business lesson. The lesson is that every public interaction is now part of an athlete’s commercial profile. That means athlete representation is evolving. Today’s representatives aren’t just negotiating contracts. They’re helping clients understand: * How a digital footprint is interpreted. * How brand-risk assessments are changing. * How personal values and commercial partnerships intersect. * How to build a long-term reputation that supports both authenticity and opportunity. AI isn’t replacing endorsement decision-makers. But it is increasingly shaping the information those decision-makers see first. The question for the industry isn’t whether this is coming. It’s whether athletes and their advisors are prepared for it. #SportsBusiness #AthleteRepresentation #SportsMarketing #NIL #BrandStrategy #ArtificialIntelligence #SportsLaw #RiskManagement #Endorsements https://lnkd.in/eaG7_eQx https://lnkd.in/eB9ArfUF