You might not know Lewis Hamilton in real life. But you can always (try to) connect with him on LinkedIn.

The Ferrari F1 driver is among a larger influx of athletes who have joined the platform in the past five years or so, according to Laura Lorenzetti, LinkedIn’s senior director and executive editor of global editorial. The trend started largely among retired athletes as they moved onto the next stage of their careers, Lorenzetti said, but athletes on the platform now include current pros. In addition to Hamilton, Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry and tennis star Sloane Stephens are both on the platform, as are a number of college athletes.

“They are ultimately business people,” Lorenzetti told Marketing Brew. “They are professionals. Their first career is going to be their sport, [but] it is not going to be their last career. They are super savvy, and they understand that they need to be setting themselves up for whatever comes next, and they’re starting to do that earlier and earlier.”

We spoke with Lorenzetti to unpack why athletes are leveraging LinkedIn and what it means for the players and platform.

Continue reading here.—AM

One of the top salespeople at Gallagher is a former pro rugby player.

Nathan Hines, who played internationally for Scotland in the early aughts, joined Gallagher as business development director for its rugby clients in 2020, translating his leadership skills from pitch to pitch deck, according to Gallagher CMO Chris Mead.

The insurance brand is betting Hines isn’t the only athlete who can thrive in the corporate world—with a little bit of help, of course.

“You can’t just sell to a client tomorrow,” Mead told Marketing Brew. “It’s no different than you can’t hit a 98-mile-an-hour fastball or shoot a 3-point shot in one day. They’ve got that training. They just need some professional structure.”

The insurance broker, which represents a range of clients, including many sports teams, venues, and athletes, has taken a somewhat unorthodox approach to the sports sponsorship world since it began pushing into marketing around eight years ago.

Gallagher sponsors several of its sports clients that it buys insurance for, ranging from regional to international deals, and unlike a more typical buy that could focus on naming rights or jersey patches, the brand is focused on building out experiences for potential customers. Recently, it’s also expanded into serving athletes, like through an internship program for active players who might end up following in Hines’s footsteps.

Read more here.—AM

The days of the annual rainbow logo seem like a thing of the past.

If corporate Pride was quiet last year, it was all but silent in 2025—with a few notable exceptions.

This year, Pride organizers big and small struggled to gain corporate support, both online and off. Mastercard, Nissan, PepsiCo, Citi, Diageo, Anheuser-Bush, and Comcast were among the national brands that pulled sponsorships in cities like New York and San Francisco, and Pride events in smaller cities faced a drop in donations of between 70% and 90%, according to data from the United States Association of Prides cited by Them. All the while, support on social media from brands that previously vocally supported Pride, including Amazon and Meta, was far more muted.

Overall, nearly 40% of brands reported that they planned to reduce their Pride engagement this year, according to an April survey from Gravity Research.

While in recent years brands have cited a fear of pushback from conservative activists, President Trump’s inauguration seems to have upped the ante, causing decision-makers to fear potential political retribution. The majority of executives surveyed by Gravity cited the Trump administration as their top reason for scaling back on Pride this year.

All quiet on the inclusive front? This isn’t the first heritage month or day that’s felt quiet since Trump took office for his second term in January. Earlier this year, Target, which scaled back on Pride last year after an organized conservative boycott against the chain, has faced consumer backlash and drops in foot traffic after it pulled back on its DEI commitments and Black History Month activations.

During Women’s History Month in March, CEO of brand studio Notorious111, Katie Hooper, told us that one of the studio’s healthcare-related clients faced “instant backlash” on Meta platforms for a women’s health campaign; the brand, she said, ultimately decided to pause its rollout. On a larger scale, Hooper said she’s concerned about what she sees as brands’ reluctance to stand for much at all.

“What we’re seeing, which feels new, is this great sort of hesitancy to even be known for anything,” she said.

Continue reading here.—KH

Join us on July 24 at What’s Next? Navigating the Future Business of Creator Marketing to hear from Ashley Schapiro, VP of marketing at American Eagle. She’s leading the charge on creator partnerships that connect—and convert. Don’t miss her insights on staying relevant, building authentic brand moments, and winning over the next generation of consumers.

Tune in to this week’s episode of The Refill, the AI-voiced audio recap of the Marketing Brew stories that drive your marketing career forward. This week, we’re covering the resurgence of the film industry, how P.F. Chang’s is boosting brand affinity online, and Reddit’s move into international sports partnerships.

Catch the latest episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your audio media.

Stories we’re jealous of.

• Bloomberg wrote about the strategy behind Gap’s turnaround.
• The New York Times wrote about the young people clamoring for “nostalgia tech,” like BlackBerry phones.
• Ad Age took a look at dairy brand Tillamook and the positive press it generated from sending a 40-pound block of cheese to a social media-beloved foster dog, Tiki.