In the age of NIL, the college sports landscape looks increasingly professional. Transfers are common, viewership is skyrocketing, and brands are paying big bucks to advertise against college games, claim naming rights, and partner with college athletes.

In the wake of that shift, some marketers are headed back to school—high school, that is.

“The high school landscape, inclusive of college and grassroots, is really at the forefront as far as how we’re thinking about increasing brand demand,” Craig Cummings, VP of the team sports division at Under Armour, told Marketing Brew. “From the high school perspective, ultimately, it’s the ability for our brand to be associated with athletes when they’re at a pivotal place in their personal development.”

Youth athletes often have clout within their local communities, and in the age of streaming and social media, where clips from games and practices can unexpectedly go viral, high school sports have the potential to provide brands with serious reach. As the high school sports space grows up alongside college and the pros, some marketers are looking to get in early, with endemic brands like Under Armour and Nike leading the way.

“It’s about credibility, and about showing the other students that this athlete, who’s usually the trendsetter, is feeling comfortable wearing our brand off the field, off the court,” Cummings said.

Continue reading here.—AM

Sundance is taking over Park City, Utah, for the last time.

The film festival, which kicked off last Thursday and runs until Feb. 1, has drawn the film industry and marketers keen on branded entertainment opportunities to the ski destination for years. As the festival prepares to take its last bow in Utah ahead of a move to Boulder, Colorado, next year, marketer attendance could be even higher than usual.

David Anderson, UTA’s partner and co-head of entertainment and marketing told Marketing Brew he is noticing outsize interest. When it comes to sponsors, “it feels like they’re showing up with both a seniority and a size of presence that has not always been the case, because it’s the last one,” he told us, noting that “strong attendance” isn’t just from sponsors.

“We host a dinner for marketing executives on Friday night, and I think we have more CMOs coming than ever before,” he said ahead of the dinner.

That attendance serves as a reminder of the changing landscape of both entertainment and advertising. Brands are entering the entertainment realm, standing up studios and appointing chief entertainment officers. As that investment continues, it’s becoming increasingly important for marketers to show up at key festivals like Sundance, whether it’s in Park City or not.

Ahead of the festival’s kickoff, Gap announced that it had hired Paramount veteran Pam Kaufman to serve as its first-ever chief entertainment officer, a hire that could be a point of conversation at the festival as marketers figure out how to navigate a further push into entertainment, Anderson noted.

“I think it’s going to cause other big brands to question, ‘How am I playing in the space?’ and, ‘What should we be thinking about that?’” he said.

Read more here.—KM

Hair has always been a big deal in men’s hockey, if the timeless “hockey flow” style of many players’ tresses is any indication. But beauty and hair brand sponsorships haven’t always been common in men’s professional sports.

That tide is starting to turn, including in South Florida, where back-to-back Stanley Cup champs the Florida Panthers recently brought hair care brand L’ange on board as the team’s official hair care partner.

The Panthers deal is the first sports sponsorship for the South Florida-based L’ange, according to Shamila Byler, VP of marketing for Integra Beauty, L’ange’s parent company, and she’s betting her team can leverage the rising tide around hockey to find unique opportunities to connect with women and other fans in L’ange’s home region.

“We felt the draw, as many people have, towards more in-person experiences and connecting through shared passion points,” Byler told Marketing Brew. “When we looked closer into this partnership specifically, we saw there was a huge female audience, a lot of it driven by the overall enthusiasm around the team, but also, hockey seems to lend itself to a female audience, which is our target market.”

Continue reading here.—AM

As online spaces grow more crowded, creators are taking control offline. Explore why creators are hosting their own in-person events, from meetups to run clubs, how these IRL moments build deeper community and new revenue streams, and why brands are increasingly eager to plug into experiences that are creator-led, not algorithm-driven.