Ogilvy is adding a new C-suite title to its roster that shows how advertising giants are integrating sports marketing into their main fold: global sports and entertainment officer. Vickie Segar, co-founder of athlete talent agency Article 41, is moving into the role as Ogilvy takes a minority stake in her shop.

Nearly half (48.5%) of the US population will be live sports viewers this year, EMARKETER forecasts. While sports marketing has always been a clear opportunity for advertisers, fanbase growth and the athlete shift into content creation have opened up new partnership opportunities for brands.

The investment brings the talent acquisition process closer to Ogilvy’s advertising teams and follows Publicis Groupe’s acquisition of global sports agency 160over90 last month.

Article 41 set out to disrupt what Segar calls the traditional media approach, where brands would visit a school, write a check for a star player’s multimedia rights, and feature them on billboards and digital assets.

“That has its place…but we really want to help universities and athletes build out their ecosystem,” said Segar. “We want to help brands be able to partner at scale with all athletes, and not just Ohio State football players or UCLA basketball players.”

Bringing talent matching in-house

Segar was the founder and CEO of influencer agency Village Marketing, which was acquired by Ogilvy holding company WPP in 2022. Shifting from generalized influencer marketing to athlete work has meant reframing what the right partner should look like for advertisers.

Over 2 in 5 college sports fans consider sponsored brands in their purchase decisions, according to a February Big Chalk survey. Brands that only consider athletes with the highest follower counts as the drivers of those decisions are “missing the entire playbook,” said Segar, and picking partners is no longer as straightforward as choosing a celebrity player for a billboard campaign.

“You might not know who the number one women’s lacrosse player in the country is, but the lacrosse community does,” she said. “She might have only 6,000 followers on social, but she’s a big f—king deal. It was a misunderstanding of value.”

The athlete treatment

Athletes need more support than traditional creators, said Segar, who said advertising strategy and talent management work best when they’re closely tied.

“We film a significant percentage of the content for the athletes,” said Segar. “They are creators because of their sport, not because they are phenomenal at posting on social media. Being as close to the talent as possible makes you better for brands."

US sports fans enjoy seeing athletes’ post-game highlights (34%) almost as much as personal life updates (31%), according to an April 2025 YouGov survey. Beyond engaging existing fans, creator content also builds demand for sports, said Segar.

“We are not all of a sudden shot put fans until we hear the story of the shot put athlete, and then I’m not going to miss a shot put event,” she said. “I think we forget that sport is really human.”

Dodging dull partnerships

Higher brand investment in sports brings the challenge of standing out. Amidst saturation, relying on a recognizable face or a tentpole moment doesn’t always lend itself to memorable creative.

“Marketers’ jobs are to find stories that intersect with their brand story,” said Segar. “Talent as media works and that’s great, but we’re on the hunt for stories that align, but we have to dig in and search for that.”

The future of athlete creator marketing will lean more heavily on creative, she said.

“I really think people are starting to split more of the performance ad content from the entertainment content,” she said. “We’re really here for more entertainment content these days. The implication of that is more in-depth storytelling with brands and longterm partnerships."