Most athlete influencer marketing advice stops at "work with micro-influencers" and "be authentic". We wanted to see what the biggest athlete brands actually do, so we pulled the 50 most recent sponsored posts for each of the most-searched athlete brands in the US and looked at who posted, how each deal was disclosed, and which posts took off.

Here's why athlete brands work with creators, the commonalities in their strategy, and a step-by-step way to run your own campaign.

Why athlete brands use influencer marketing

Creators do a few things for athlete brands that ads and product pages can't:

• Followers see the gear under real strain. A product shown in a hard session or a race is more convincing than one on a model. 20 of Oakley's last 50 sponsored posts were filmed hands-free or from the athlete's point of view.
• Comebacks keep fans watching. Fans follow athletes through injuries and returns as closely as through wins. A footballer with 158k followers filming herself running on grass for the first time in 8 months got 651k plays for Oakley.
• A signing is news to their fans. When an athlete joins a brand's team, their followers want to know about it. A creator with 1.0M followers announcing they'd joined the Gymshark team got 163k plays.
• Workouts give followers something to copy. People save training sessions to try in their own gym. A full push-day breakdown from a creator with 86k followers got 6.4k likes for Gymshark, about 7% of their following.

Top athlete brands using influencer marketing

These are the most-searched athlete brands in the US, according to Ahrefs. Deal types show how each post was disclosed (for example, with a paid partnership label or an ambassador hashtag). Creator tiers: micro 10k–50k followers, mid-tier 50k–500k, macro 500k+.

1. Under Armour: trainers and runners chasing a PB

Under Armour's last 50 sponsored posts mix training with everyday wear. 11 creators wore its Bouncy Tee from workout to night out, and 4 posts follow runners training in its Velociti Distance shoes, including a 5K PB challenge. 7 of its 13 ambassador posts are drills and movement tips from three fitness creators. Its creators are based in the US (15), the UK (7) and Turkey (4), and 8 posts include a code or sale password.

• Creators: @berkannkarabulut (709k), @greggrippo (360k) and @kdkinetics (291k) are among the creators who've posted for Under Armour.
• How posts were disclosed: 33 paid partnership, 13 ambassador, 2 gifted, 2 unspecified

What to take from it: Give trainers room to teach. @kdkinetics posted four movement and mobility tip videos as an Under Armour ambassador in just over five weeks, and the first got 134k plays, almost half of their 291k following.

2. Puma: runners and football clubs next to its sneakers

Puma splits its last 50 sponsored posts between sport and style. 15 show its Speedcat, H-Street and Suede sneakers, 6 are about running and HYROX, from race-day kit to the London Marathon, and 8 come from football clubs, players and freestylers, like a new Borussia home kit. Its creators are based in the US (10), Germany (7) and the UK (3), 37 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and only one uses a code.

• Creators: @elburritomonster (1.5M), @mcfc.lads (345k) and @globerunnergriff (115k) are among the creators who've posted for Puma.
• How posts were disclosed: 37 paid partnership, 9 gifted, 3 ambassador, 1 affiliate

What to take from it: Let athletes tell the story behind the race. @globerunnergriff, a runner with 115k followers, wrote about running over 2,500km in their build-up to the London Marathon with Puma, and the post got 5.7k likes, about 5% of their following.

3. Gymshark: a personal code for every athlete

48 of Gymshark's last 50 sponsored posts give the creator's own code, almost always for 10% off, like LEOB10 or CRISP10. All 50 went live in 11 days, from August 24 to September 3, around the return of its Everyday Seamless collection (11 posts) and a new running collection designed by @lilylifts (5 posts). Its creators are based in the UK (11), Germany (4) and the US (4).

• Creators: @dianaconforti.fit (2.9M), @yazmin.stevens (354k) and @leo.bna (186k) are among the creators who've posted for Gymshark.
• How posts were disclosed: 23 affiliate, 22 paid partnership, 3 unspecified, 2 ambassador

What to take from it: Let one athlete post every day of a launch week. @leo.bna, a bodybuilding creator with 186k followers, posted six times in six days with code LEOB10, and his Toosa curls tutorial got 171k plays.

4. Oakley: athletes filming through its smart glasses

39 of Oakley's last 50 sponsored posts are about its Oakley Meta smart glasses, mostly from runners and cyclists filming their training hands-free. Pro athletes front the launch, from cricketer Virat Kohli to baseball's Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Its creators are based in the US (18), the UK (7) and Australia (4), and none use a code, though 3 posts push up to $95 off until May 25.

• Creators: @virat.kohli (273.6M), @katiewilliams (154k) and @unofficialrunclub (66k) are among the creators who've posted for Oakley.
• How posts were disclosed: 43 paid partnership, 4 ambassador, 3 gifted

What to take from it: Turn a training block into a series. @unofficialrunclub, a run club with 66k followers, filmed its Boston Marathon build as episodes on Oakley Meta glasses, and Episode 2 got 1.4M plays, more than 21 times its following.

5. Beats: star athletes and a Nike collab

Beats' last 49 sponsored posts lean on star athletes. Shohei Ohtani posted for it, and 17 posts are about its Nike Powerbeats Pro 2, which LeBron James launched on a golf course. 10 of those came from humor and history pages that covered the collab on March 17 and 18. Its creators are based in the US (19), the UK (6) and Canada (3), 44 posts were disclosed as paid partnerships, and none use a code.

• Creators: @kingjames (153.9M), @melodyymiles (254k) and @gabbygolfgirl (1.3M) are among the creators who've posted for Beats.
• How posts were disclosed: 44 paid partnership, 3 ambassador, 2 gifted

What to take from it: Line up creators from the same sport for the day a star launches. @gabbygolfgirl, a golf creator with 1.3M followers, posted the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2 the same day LeBron James did and got 719k plays, Beats' most-viewed post.

What the top athlete brands have in common

Looking across all 249 posts, four patterns stand out:

• Star athletes front the big launches. Oakley launched its smart glasses with cricketer Virat Kohli, whose post got 5.6M likes, and Beats tied its Nike collab to LeBron James.
• Smaller creators get more out of their audience. Across 196 posts with visible likes, creators under 50k followers got a median of 2.7% of their followers liking the post. For creators above 50k, it was 0.9%.
• Codes are a Gymshark habit. 48 of Gymshark's 50 posts give a personal code. Across the other four brands, only 9 of 199 posts include one.
• Ambassador labels are rare. Only 25 of the 249 posts were labeled as ambassador posts, and 13 of those are Under Armour's.

How to run a athlete influencer marketing campaign

Here's how to run a campaign step by step, using what the top athlete brands do at each stage.

1. Pick one goal and one metric

Decide what the campaign is for before you pick a single creator, because the goal changes who you book, how you pay them and what you ask them to post. The top athlete brands' posts show both goals at work. Under Armour's 20%-off codes with an end date and Oakley's "up to $95 off" posts are built to drive sales that week. Puma's club kit launches and Beats' star-athlete posts are built for reach.

• Sales: track revenue per creator with a unique link and code.
• Awareness: track views, saves and reach per post.
• New customers: if you're selling into a sport that doesn't know you yet, like Oakley's smart glasses with runners and cyclists, track first-time buyers per athlete's link or code.

Pick one metric per campaign so you can compare creators fairly afterwards.

2. Find and vet creators who fit your brand

Follower count is the last thing to filter on. A creator with 50k followers filming themselves asking their Oakley Meta glasses "when's my next race?" got 3.2M plays, 64 times their following, because a race calendar is what runners check every week. Across all five brands, creators under 50k followers got about three times the likes relative to their audience.

Our survey found niche micro-creators are outperforming mega-influencers: nearly 60% of marketers said niche influencers performed better in 2025 than in 2024.

• Write down who buys your product (weekend runners, gym regulars, high school and college athletes) and look for creators living that life.
• Search Modash's database of 380M+ creators and filter by audience demographics (age, gender, location), bio keywords, engagement rate and fake-follower checks.
• Or describe that creator in plain language, like "runners who film their marathon training", and Modash's AI creator search surfaces matching creators on the platform you're searching.

• Check who else they've posted for. @caityviant posted for Oakley and also for Hoka, Therabody and WHOOP. Modash shows which brands a creator has already posted sponsored content for.

You can also find athlete influencers for free, for example by searching the hashtags your buyers follow.

3. Choose the deal type

Most athlete posts are paid one-offs. Oakley and Beats disclosed 43 of 50 and 44 of 49 posts as paid partnerships. Gymshark is the exception, with 23 labeled as affiliate posts.

• Gifting works for new kit athletes will want to test in training, like the Puma race-day kit gifted to a runner before the Boston and London marathons.
• Paid posts suit launches and race weeks that need posts on a fixed date, like a new shoe or a kit reveal.
• Affiliate works for gym creators who post several times a week and can keep sharing the same code, like Gymshark's athletes.
• Ambassador deals suit trainers and coaches who'll teach in your gear week after week, like Under Armour's ambassadors.

Commission-only is getting harder to sell, though. Over 23% of marketers in our survey said creators would take performance pay only if a flat fee came with it. If you run tiers, the average commission tiers in our affiliate research were 10%, 14% and 19%, and brands with more than one tier had more active affiliates.

4. Brief the content formats that work in athlete

The captions from the top athlete brands point to three formats that carry most of their creator content:

• Training POV. Oakley's runners and cyclists film their sessions from their own eyes, from 10K runs to three-hour rides. Ask athletes to film a real session, not a staged one.
• Workout tutorials. 11 of Gymshark's posts are workouts, from a full push day to single-exercise tutorials. Ask for the sets and reps in the caption so followers can save it.
• Race builds. Puma's and Under Armour's runners post the weeks before a marathon or a 5K PB attempt, then the result. Book athletes before the race, not after it.

Whatever the format, give athletes one partner hashtag to use every time, like #UnderArmourPartner or #BeatsPartner, and the exact product name to say on camera.

5. Launch with tracked links and time-limited codes

Most of the top athlete brands skip codes. Under Armour used sale passwords instead, with 4 creators sharing early access to its Chain Reaction Sale. Puma had one code, and Oakley and Beats had none.

Codes also leak. In our affiliate marketing research, 47.6% of marketers said they struggle with code poaching, where a creator's code ends up on coupon sites.

• Give every creator a tracked link for everyday posts, and add a code only for launches and sales.
• Put an end date in the caption so followers know the offer won't last.
• If creators use "comment for the link", make sure the link they send by DM is their tracked link.

In Modash, each creator gets a tracked link and a code tied to your Shopify data, so sales from DMs, bios and stories all count toward the right person. Commission is calculated on net revenue after refunds and returns.

6. Rebook your best creators

The top athlete brands rarely rebook: only 24 of their 213 creators posted more than once. That's a missed chance for athletes, whose seasons, training blocks and race calendars give followers a reason to watch the same gear for months. Gymshark is the exception, with 10 of its 33 creators posting more than once.

Most marketers want to do more of this. In our influencer marketing trends survey, over 60% said they plan to invest more in long-term partnerships, but only 54% actually ran more of them last year.

• Start new creators on a single post, then offer a longer deal to the ones who hit your metric from step 1.
• Use revenue per creator, not likes, to decide who gets rebooked. Modash's campaign dashboard shows revenue, orders and ROAS for each creator.
• Give rebooked athletes something new each time, like a new shoe, a race to train for or a new season's kit, so their posts don't repeat.

Where athlete creator programs go wrong

The top brands avoid a few mistakes that trip up smaller programs:

• Booking athletes in their off-season. Athletes post most when they're training for something, and a launch that lands between seasons gets less of their attention. Plan posts around each athlete's race, match or season calendar.
• Offering commission-only deals to established creators. In our survey, 63% of marketers said influencers were open to becoming affiliates in 2024. In 2025 that fell to 26%. When you reach out to established creators, offer a flat fee plus commission rather than commission alone.
• Running the affiliate program on autopilot. In our affiliate research, marketers who were "very involved" with their affiliates had 71.5% of them active. "Very hands-off" marketers had 10%. Affiliates post when you give them a reason to, so check in every month with something new to share. For athlete, that could be a new kit drop, a race or match to train for, or a new workout to film.
• Sending affiliates old product. 93% of marketers gift products to affiliates, but almost 30% don't refresh them when something new launches. Send every new shoe or kit to your athletes before their next race or season starts.
• Ignoring team and league sponsor rules. Many athletes already have team, league or kit deals that limit which brands they can show, and when. Ask about existing contracts before you brief, and keep rival logos out of shot.

FAQ

How much does athlete influencer marketing cost?

It depends on platform, following and engagement. Micro-influencers often work for free product plus a fee in the low hundreds per post, or an affiliate commission. Larger creators charge more. Many brands start with gifting plus commission to test fit before committing to flat fees. To estimate what a specific creator is likely to charge, drop their handle into our free Instagram influencer pricing calculator.

Which platform is best for athlete influencer marketing?

Instagram carries most athlete creator work, and every sponsored post we analyzed for the five most-searched athlete brands ran there. TikTok is worth testing too: in our survey, marketers rated TikTok videos the highest-performing deliverable (53.2%).

Which athlete brands use influencer marketing?

Under Armour, Puma, Gymshark, Oakley and Beats are the most-searched athlete brands in the US, and all of them run active creator programs. See the breakdown above for who each one works with.

Should athlete brands work with micro or macro influencers?

It depends on your goal. A launch chasing awareness leans bigger, a conversion play leans smaller and more trusted. In the athlete posts we analyzed, creators under 50k followers got about three times the likes relative to their audience size, so most brands should build their base with micro-influencers (10k–50k followers) and add bigger names for launches.

How do I measure athlete influencer marketing?

Track sales per creator with unique links and codes, then compare revenue against what you paid (fees, product and commission). Our engagement rate calculator and fake follower checker help you vet creators before you spend, and our guide to influencer marketing ROI covers the full calculation.

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