Footballers have never had more control over how they are seen beyond the pitch.
Social media has given players direct access to millions of fans, while opportunities across fashion, music, gaming, business and entertainment have expanded what an athlete’s career can look like away from competition. But having reach and building a genuine personal brand are two very different things.
As Head of Client Strategy at Unique Sports Group, Izzy Golder works at the centre of that shift, helping players identify the interests, stories and opportunities that feel authentic to who they are. Her own journey started at IMG Studios, where a chance introduction led to freelance runner work and an early education in talent, relationships and making the most of every opportunity.
In this Industry Insider, Izzy discusses what separates a strong athlete brand from a large social following, why timing can be just as important as the opportunity itself, and how footballers are increasingly taking ownership of their narratives, businesses and long-term reputations.
You started your career through internships and work experience before progressing into full-time roles within the sports industry. What initially attracted you to sport, and how did you go about getting that first opportunity?
I’ve always had an interest in working in sport, although growing up I was actually deciding between fashion and sport. Many of my early internships were in fashion and beauty, including a year in industry at L’Oréal head office, within the events and talent team, which gave me early exposure to that world.
My first real introduction to the sports industry came through IMG Studios. While home from university, I worked as a freelance runner for a couple of years. I actually got the opportunity by chance; I met someone at a wedding who was a sound engineer at IMG and asked if they could put me in touch with whoever booked the runners. I emailed them, asked if they had any opportunities, and it went from there.
That experience taught me a lot about getting into the industry. For the three years I was there, my mindset was never to say no to an opportunity. Whether it was working on a different sport to the Premier League, doing overnight shifts working on the US Open or taking on double shifts, I was happy to get stuck in. The more opportunities I took, the more people I met, and the more opportunities seemed to come from those relationships. (and the better I became at making Ian Wright’s complicated tea order!)
Alongside that, I studied Business Management at university, and in my final year I chose to tailor my dissertation to football to help with my career. I researched the financial state of the football industry, which was particularly interesting as it was during COVID. As the pandemic unfolded, I had to reassess some of the assumptions I’d initially made about the financial health of the industry.
All of that really confirmed for me that football was where I wanted to build my career. I’d always been interested in sport, but I became increasingly fascinated by everything that sits around it – the business, brands, athletes, media and the wider culture.
Your experience at IMG and Premier League productions ultimately led you in the football industry. How important was that experience in shaping your career, and what did you do during that period to make yourself indispensable rather than simply another intern?
I think my experience as a runner was incredibly valuable because it gave me an understanding of how the industry works from the ground up. I was exposed to so many different people – from talent and producers to other runners and the wider production team – and it taught me very early on how important relationships are.
One of the biggest things I learnt was how to anticipate what people needed rather than simply waiting to be asked. When you’re working with talent for long periods of time, you quickly learn to read the room, understand what they might need and make their day as easy as possible, while also learning how to balance different personalities and priorities.
I was often asked to take photos of them for their socials. Having worked with the same talent consistently, I got comfortable suggesting ways they could post them, creating reels from their days and helping amplify their social channels. I think those small things not only helped me build trust and relationships with the talent I was working with but also helped me land an internship and then a full-time role with B-Engaged, where I eventually worked for 18 months.
Looking back, that experience gave me a really strong foundation for the work I do now. A lot of what I’ve learnt since, particularly around talent, relationships, communication and understanding people’s needs, started there. I still regularly pinch myself that this is my job! Being part of Anthony Gordons move and spending 5 days in Barcelona was a dream come true to be honest.
You’ve progressed from brand and communications into social media and now client strategy. How has your understanding of what makes a strong athlete brand evolved as your career has developed?
I think the biggest thing that has evolved throughout my career is my understanding of how important authenticity and longevity are. Whatever we do for a client here at Unique Sports Group has to feel true to them. You can have the biggest platform or the best opportunity in the world, but if it doesn’t feel authentic to the athlete, it won’t have longevity.
Social media is such a valuable way of getting to know the athletes I’m working with from early on – their interests, their personality, what they enjoy outside of football and, importantly, what they want to achieve in the future.
That has shaped how I approach strategy now. We always talk about helping clients tell their own narrative and making them come across as human as possible. I think the strongest athlete brands aren’t necessarily the ones that feel the most polished; they’re the ones where you feel like you genuinely know the person behind the athlete.
For me, a strong athlete brand is about finding the intersection between who that person genuinely is, what they’re interested in and what they ultimately want their career and life to look like. Our job is to find that story and then create the right platforms and opportunities to tell it in a way that feels completely natural to them.
Footballers today have an opportunity to build an audience and identity far beyond what happens on the pitch. What separates the players who build genuinely strong personal brands from those who simply have large social followings?
I think the biggest difference is that a following and a personal brand are two very different things.
You can have a huge audience simply because you play for a club with a massive global fanbase. We see that a lot with our academy players and young first-team players at clubs like Manchester United or Liverpool – they can have significant reach before they’ve necessarily established an identity of their own.
The opportunity is in turning that audience into something more meaningful. What are you known for beyond football? What do you care about? What can people connect with that they wouldn’t necessarily get from watching you play?
The players who build the strongest personal brands tend to have a genuine point of view and interests outside of the game. They’re not trying to become a celebrity for the sake of it; they’re using their platform to talk about things that genuinely interest them.
How do you approach helping an athlete develop their identity away from football without creating something that feels manufactured or disconnected from who they actually are?
The key for me will always be understanding the human behind the footballer and what they want to achieve beyond the game.
Athletes are role models, so any partnership or initiative we put their name to needs to be something we’re genuinely invested in. Even when it comes to philanthropy, every endeavor has to be right for that individual. It can’t just be something that looks good externally.
We try to build plans looking at the next few years and identifying the building blocks we can put in place now, whether that’s social, PR, commercial, charitable or something else.
The valuable thing about working for USG is that this plan is built together. It combines the plans the agent has for the player on the pitch with how we can complement this for them off the pitch.
Marc Guéhi is a good example of that. We wanted to show Marc’s passions away from the person everyone see’s on the pitch, and we slowly built on his love of music and looked for opportunities to bring that side of his personality to life. Whether that was the Young Lions documentary on Amazon, his Rolling Stone interview pre-World Cup or going back to his old school to meet the current pupils in the music department, each opportunity helps build that narrative rather than creating something from scratch.
We’re also seeing more players build their own brands and foundations to give back. I think that’s particularly powerful because the player can tell their own story, share their own experiences and give back to their community.
The Calvin Bassey Collective was born out of Calvin wanting to use his position as a role model to create a long-term, purpose-led initiative focused on community, inclusivity and empowerment for young people in London. Because this was going to be a long-term project for Calvin and ultimately something he’d speak about a lot, it had to be authentic to him – it’s his legacy and guidance we’re creating together.
So far, we’ve created Bassey Day and Bassey Talks off the back of it, and I think that’s an example of how you can take something that genuinely matters to an athlete and build a bigger platform around it over time.
We’re increasingly seeing footballers cross into fashion, music, gaming and wider culture. How much opportunity is there for players to build themselves at those intersections rather than being viewed purely as athletes?
Huge opportunities !!
The modern football audience is much more open now to seeing athletes do more and, importantly, to seeing them as people. At the same time, brands are increasingly looking for authenticity rather than simply the biggest name they can put on a campaign. Obviously, our priority will always be the performance on the pitch, but when this is successful there’s so many opportunities off it.
Years ago, you might have had a very small number of players – Ronaldo, Messi and a handful of others — who could genuinely cross over into wider culture at scale. Now there’s so much intrigue around players further down the pyramid and across different age groups.
That creates opportunities for players who have genuine interests and personalities outside of football. Whether it’s fashion, music, gaming, food, business or something completely different, there’s an opportunity to build something unique.
You’ve been involved in work such as Anthony Gordon’s feature with The Overlap. What goes into identifying the right opportunities for an athlete, and how do you decide whether a brand, publication or collaboration genuinely fits the individual?
It always comes back to understanding the client, their interests and the timing.
Having worked with Anthony for four years now, this is a perfect example. At the time of the Overlap interview, he was on the fringe of the England set-up and wasn’t yet as widely known as he is now. He has genuine interests in improving his game, whether it’s his recovery, meditation or passion for reading, so rather than looking at the biggest publication available, we looked at who would be best placed to sit down with Anthony and tell that story.
We had actually spoken to The Overlap previously when he left Everton, but the timing wasn’t right. If we had pushed it then, it potentially would have been a wasted opportunity. Waiting until there was a stronger story to tell made the feature much more valuable.
We regularly turn down opportunities for players if they don’t suit them as individuals. A podcast about high performance might be perfect for one player, whereas attending London Fashion Week might be much more relevant to another.
For us, the question is never simply, “Is this a good opportunity?” It’s, “Is this a good opportunity for this player, at this particular point in their career?”
Players now have direct access to millions of fans through their own channels. Has that changed the relationship between athletes, clubs, agents and traditional media?
Definitely. I think the biggest change is that players now have far more ownership over their own narrative.
Leaving a club can be just as important from a communications perspective as joining one. Marc Guéhi is a good example. When he said goodbye to Crystal Palace, we worked closely with the media team to record the moment while we were in Manchester and make sure Marc got to properly thank the fans.
That kind of moment used to be much more reliant on other media outlets or the club itself. Now a player can communicate directly with their audience, which gives them much greater control over how their story is told.
At the same time, it means the relationship between everyone around the player has become even more important. You have the athlete, agent, club, family, management team, media and commercial partners, and everyone needs to be working towards the same objective.
We’re also seeing clubs lean on players more than ever for content and social output. Players are effectively becoming their own media channels, so there has to be a balance between what works for the club and what works for the individual.
Traditional media still has an incredibly important role, but I think the relationship has changed. A player doesn’t necessarily need a broadsheet interview to tell their story anymore — they can use their own channels to do that. The role of traditional media increasingly becomes about adding depth, credibility and a different perspective to that narrative.
There’s naturally a commercial opportunity around an athlete’s profile, but there’s also their long-term reputation to consider. How do you balance short-term commercial opportunities with building a brand that can last beyond their playing career?
I think you unlock far greater creative and commercial value when you think about the long-term brand rather than just the next deal.
We always look at the bigger picture as an agency. Ultimately, an athlete’s playing career is relatively short. The personal brand you build around it can last for decades, so the decisions we make now need to have that longevity in mind, and not always ‘what’s the fee?’.
We’re seeing athletes increasingly launch businesses, invest, create content and develop their own media platforms. Do you think players are starting to think about life after football earlier than previous generations did?
I don’t think it’s necessarily about players thinking about life after football earlier. I think it’s more that the opportunity available to them during their playing career has changed dramatically.
Players now have access to platforms, audiences, brands and infrastructure that simply didn’t exist for previous generations. They can launch businesses, invest, create content and build communities while they’re still playing.
Don’t get me wrong, we have conversations with players earlier about what life after football could look like and what steps we can put in place now. For example, that might mean appearing on a podcast to develop their confidence and experience in media.
But I think, in general, players consider their other options earlier because the opportunity is there and they have teams around them who can help them explore it.
Athlete marketing and talent management is an area a lot of young people would love to work in. What skills and characteristics do you look for in people entering that side of the industry, and what advice would you give someone trying to stand out?
The biggest thing for me is being a go-getter.
In these roles, you aren’t necessarily always given the ideas or the tasks. A big part of the job is being proactive, spotting opportunities and thinking about what we could be doing before someone asks you to do it.
Relationship building is also incredibly important. You work with so many different stakeholders – the athlete, club, family, agent, media, brands and internal teams – and you need to be able to build trust and manage all those relationships.
I’d also say that anything you can do to make yourself stand out during the application or interview process will set you apart. Show that you know the company, understand its clients and have actually done your research.
We’ve received far too many CVs that could have been sent to any company in the industry. If you’re applying somewhere, make it obvious why you want to work there specifically and what you could bring to the team. To be honest we receive CV’s for jobs within the off-pitch team without a supporting email. It’s the little things!
And finally, my director has always said from the beginning, don’t be afraid to have an opinion. If you see something a company or athlete could be doing differently, explain why. We’d much rather see someone who has thought about the industry and has ideas than someone who simply tells us they’re passionate about sport.
Quickfire
Favourite sporting moment?
England vs Germany at Wembley in 2021.
Best athlete personal brand in sport?
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
A footballer whose off-pitch brand you think is underrated?
Karim Adeyemi.
Sport, fashion or music?
Oooo… going to have to say sport!
Instagram or TikTok?
Instagram.
One brand you’d love to collaborate with on behalf of an athlete?
Bottega Veneta.
Best piece of career advice you’ve received?
Think bigger. Take the risk. Don’t worry too much about the size of the idea – working out how to achieve it can come later.
One trend in athlete marketing that’s overhyped?
Chasing virality. Big numbers don’t always build a strong brand.
One prediction for athlete branding over the next five years?
I think we’ll see fewer traditional boot deals outside of the very top tier of players. Brands will become more selective about where they put those big sponsorship budgets, while players will increasingly look at smaller, more interesting brands that genuinely align with their interests – whether that’s lifestyle apparel, trainers, fashion or other areas of culture that are traditionally blocked by their boot contracts.
I think that could be more interesting for players because it gives them the opportunity to build partnerships around who they are, as well as what they do on the pitch.
Izzy’s perspective underlines an important shift in athlete marketing: the opportunity is no longer simply to maximise attention, but to build something meaningful with it.
As players gain greater control over their own channels and increasingly move into culture, business and media, the strongest personal brands will likely be those built with patience, consistency and a clear understanding of the individual behind the athlete. That also means knowing when to turn opportunities down, when to wait for the right moment and when a smaller, more authentic partnership can create more long-term value than the biggest cheque or audience.
For more conversations with the people shaping the business, culture and future of sport, explore more from Behind Sport’s Industry Insider series.
