Shortly after competing in a flag-football game co-organized by the N.F.L. on the eve of the Super Bowl, Jesse Riedel greeted young fans swarming against a barricade in San Francisco. They clawed for autographs and selfies with Jesser, as he is known to his 37 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts videos of high-energy sports challenges and side quests.
Days later, Jesser, 26, had pillows, blankets and an air mattress brought to the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., to sleep over at the site of the N.B.A. All-Star Game. To build excitement before the midseason showcase, the league unleashed Jesser in the $2 billion building. In one of his videos on Instagram, he dunked on a quiet court, a cameraman documenting his every move.
Eager to reach younger generations who watch content creators on YouTube, TikTok and Twitch more than traditional television, powerful sports leagues have opened the floodgates.
In September, YouTube aired an N.F.L. game in Brazil that included MrBeast; some of his 469 million subscribers watched him shoot a fan out of a cannon. Last month, the N.B.A. partnered with Mark Phillips, a popular personality on Twitch, to livestream a game courtside. Even the Kentucky Derby and the Masters, stoic events laced in stiff pageantry, have begun incorporating influencers.
“This is the future,” said IShowSpeed, who has 51 million YouTube subscribers and partnered with the platform on its N.F.L. game in Brazil. “It gets to a point to stick to the old traditional ways. You’ve got to move with the new internet ways.”
Sports leagues command billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast or stream games because of their unique communal draw in a fractured media ecosystem. But to expand an audience that was raised on social media, they are freely granting content creators access to marquee moments.
“We’re really in it for the right reasons, and that’s to help them also build their brands as individuals and obviously share our audiences the best we can,” said Ian Trombetta, the N.F.L.’s senior vice president for social, influencer and content marketing.
More than 14 million people watched live on YouTube as Jesser, the comedian Druski, the on-camera host Speedy Morman and others participated in the flag-football game before the Super Bowl. The league sees the game, which attracted more viewers than the Pro Bowl involving N.F.L. superstars, as a mechanism to grow its younger fan base and create exposure for flag football ahead of its debut in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The N.F.L. also appointed Dhar Mann, who has built a following of 27 million subscribers on YouTube with scripted episodes related to inspirational messaging, as its “chief kindness officer” during Super Bowl week. He was shown giving away tickets to the championship game and visiting a local dog shelter in dozens of posts that were viewed 33 million times, according to Mann’s production company.
“Sports can be very sort of binary, like, ‘Are you a fan of this team or that team?’” Mann said. “But there’s also this universal connectivity that people can come together on.”
The N.B.A. sprinkled creators like Jesser throughout its programming during the weekend of the All-Star Game.
The celebrity game, a longstanding tradition that has included movie and music stars like Kevin Hart and Justin Bieber, has increasingly incorporated internet personalities. Last year’s edition included Druski and the Twitch streamer Kai Cenat.
On the green carpet before the celebrity game this month, Jenna Bandy, a creator whose content features sports and lifestyle challenges and antics, kissed the trophy awarded to the winner of the N.B.A. Finals as someone recorded with a phone near her face. Later that afternoon, she took the opening tipoff.
Bob Carney, the N.B.A.’s senior vice president of digital and social content, said content creators were at the forefront of the league’s conversations with its sponsorship and media partners.
“They are now some of the biggest celebrities in the world and they are a critical piece of everything that we do,” he said.
Carney said the N.B.A. had used artificial-intelligence tools to identify more than 300,000 creators who have been organically discussing the league on social media. From there, league employees analyzed their work to determine more formal relationships. More than 200 creators were featured at the All-Star festivities this year.
The N.B.A. laid the groundwork for a digitally native audience in the 2010s by taking a lenient stance toward its game highlights, allowing footage to be shared across social media without aggressively pursuing copyright infractions. It was different from the approach other leagues took at the time.
“When you are no longer isolating distribution of that content and you’re now giving them to creators, I do think that it’s completely expanded the audience,” said Angela Courtin, a vice president at YouTube.
Many influencers look far beyond the actual sporting events to explore fashion, fitness and experiences such as parties and behind-the-scenes moments. Both the N.F.L. and N.B.A. have collaborated with some of the wives and girlfriends of players. These agreements often involve the leagues or sponsors promoting the creators’ content or using their likeness in advertisements.
Leagues are also experimenting with alternative broadcasts that allow fans to watch a game with a creator as the main voice onscreen instead of a traditional play-by-play broadcaster or sideline reporter.
Phillips, the Twitch creator, partnered with the N.B.A. to livestream a game in Berlin last month. While sitting courtside for a three-hour video, he discussed his favorite meal while abroad and at one point exchanged greetings with a player and threw towels with the mascot.
“It’s like watching a cartoon show and they’re going to a different place on a different episode,” Phillips said of fans watching his interactions at games and events.
In December, Phillips and the Twitch personality Fanum remotely watched a game played in Las Vegas while their faces and audio were connected to the game’s main broadcast feed. It allowed fans to watch the influencer-led broadcast on Twitch instead of just the main broadcast on Amazon Prime Video. (Amazon owns Twitch, and the league began a multiyear media-rights deal with Amazon this season.)
“There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach, and ultimately personalization is going to win the day,” Carney said. “If you have an opportunity to watch a game through the point of view of your favorite creators, we think that’s additive.”
The N.F.L.’s approach is currently more rigid.
The league conducts several alternative broadcasts, including with the retired quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Eli Manning on ESPN, but within the United States those live feeds remain within the rights holder’s ecosystem and not on an influencer’s social media channel.
International games offer more flexibility because media rights are structured differently, Trombetta, the N.F.L. executive, said. The league considers them a testing ground for creator-led streams that can help increase global fan bases.
IShowSpeed, whose real name is Darren Watkins, said he enjoyed being able to react with his fans in real time when he livestreamed the Brazil game from a remote location. A feed was made available to viewers on his personal YouTube channel.
“You make them feel excited about the game,” said Watkins, an avid soccer fan who said he hopes to stream the World Cup.
Kenny Beecham, an internet personality who co-founded Enjoy Basketball, a digital media company, recently signed a deal with NBC for three of his company’s top podcasts to appear on the network’s digital programming.
He has had minimal opportunities on high-profile television assignments compared to retired players like Carmelo Anthony, but Beecham said he had been told those chances were coming.
“Eventually when they want a little break, they can call up Kenny Beecham and I’m on the first flight over,” he said.
“I don’t even have a college degree, like a broadcasting or journalism degree,” he added. “I’m just a dude that talks hoops.”
Emmanuel Morgan reports on sports, pop culture and entertainment.
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