An exploration of how modern athletes can turn short-term visibility into long-term value by evolving from mediums to messages.
Robert Paim
Sports Brand Strategy Partnerships
Athlete Marketing
Two players. Same 2003 draft class. Same grind. Same respect inside the league.
Matt Barnes: 14 seasons. No All-Stars. Hard-nosed role player. Talked his truth, backed it up.
John Salmons: 13 seasons. Steady. Dependable. Collected his checks.
Say their names today:
Matt Barnes: “All the Smoke. That podcast is fire.”
John Salmons: “Who?”
That’s the gap.
One built meaning. The other had moments.
Moments don’t compound. Meaning does.
Moments end. Meaning travels.
John did everything right by the old playbook: keep your head down, play your role, stack your money.
He could say, “Who cares if people remember me? I had a 13-year career. I’m good.”
And he’d be right…
but can everyone guarantee themselves a 13-year career?
What if the ACL pops in year ten?
What if the next CBA tightens vet spots and that contract disappears overnight?
What if all your value lives inside a game you can’t play anymore?
Because the game always changes, sometimes literally overnight.
Ask around the league right now.
Who saw the second apron rules coming?
Veterans getting squeezed. Rosters torn apart. Front offices handcuffed.
The Celtics might win it all and still have to break it up.
When the economics shift, the only protection you have is continuity you built yourself.
That’s why having a brand isn’t about ego.
It’s insurance.
Gordon Hayward’s leg snapped on national TV. His body broke.
But his brand didn’t.
Because he wasn’t just “the Celtic with a smooth jumper.” He was “the gamer who hoops.”
That gave him a lane to keep moving while his body healed.
Everybody thinks they’ll have time. But the game moves fast.
One injury, one trade, one rookie with fresher legs, and suddenly the noise stops.
The only thing that still talks for you is what you built outside the box score.
Moments fade. Meaning pays.
It’s not “Who knows you?”
It’s “What do you mean to the people who do?”
You don’t need to be a superstar.
You just need to own what you stand for and build a structure around it.
Athletic performance creates moments.
Brand architecture turns them into meaning.
Meaning becomes IP.
That’s the formula nobody teaches.
The current system treats athletes like media inventory.
Agents chase contracts.
PR teams chase headlines.
Social managers chase engagement.
Foundations chase goodwill.
All valuable. None of it compounds.
What’s missing is someone asking a different question:
What do you mean?
Because without meaning, every brand deal just rents your attention.
Every post just feeds the algorithm.
Every partnership is someone else’s campaign running on your channel.
You’re doing the work.
They’re building the asset.
Moments create noise. Meaning builds ownership.
Most athletes today are still treated like billboards.
A placement. A name on a backdrop. Value measured by who sees them.
That’s the old approach.
It’s functional, but it ends when the season does.
The opportunity is different.
The modern athlete has the tools, the access, and the audience to become a meaning system.
A platform. Value measured not by who sees them, but by how they are seen.
This isn’t about replacing performance or press.
It’s about layering intention over exposure.
It’s about designing a system where visibility feeds narrative, and narrative feeds ownership.
That’s the real unlock.
The shift from being a surface to being a signal.
From distribution to interpretation.
From medium to message.
Every athlete sits somewhere on the same spectrum.
At one end: invisible potential.
At the other: owned meaning.
The work is guiding the journey from medium to message.
Phase 1: Build the Medium
Before an athlete can be a message, they have to become visible in a way that matters.
That means:
This is where better brand deals happen, not random placements but collaborations that fit a bigger picture.
When Terrence Crawford fought Canello, the goal wasn’t just to sell space on a ring.
It was to architect a stage where brands could participate in something larger than a fight.
That’s what it looks like to build a medium, not just a moment.
Becoming a medium gives you proof of value.
It’s where deals start aligning with your identity, not just your metrics.
Phase 2: Become the Message
Once the medium is established, the focus shifts to ownership.
Turning moments into formats, partnerships into platforms, visibility into IP.
That’s when your brand stops being rented and starts being built.
You don’t skip straight to meaning. You earn it through structure.
The right kind of visibility becomes the foundation for long-term ownership.
Real IP looks like:
That’s not monetizing a platform.
That’s owning one.
This is for athletes at every stage of the journey.
For the ones still chasing their first brand deal, who need structure, story, and visibility to even get on the radar.
For the ones already working with brands, who sense there’s more to build than another logo placement.
For the ones thinking long-term, who want ownership, not dependency.
The goal isn’t just to make you seen.
It’s to make you understood.
And once you’re understood, it’s to make you owned.
Because becoming a medium is step one.
Becoming a message is forever.
The game will forget moments.
Culture remembers meaning.
And when the rules change again,
the only leverage left will be the meaning you built before they did.
