Welcome to Part 3 of AMA San Francisco’s Playmakers event recap series exploring the future of sports marketing. In Part 1, we examined how community identity drives the success of Bay Area sports brands. Part 2 explored how modern partnerships move beyond sponsorship logos toward storytelling and experiential collaboration.

The final installment looks at another transformation shaping the industry: how digital media platforms are redefining the way sports stories travel. Social platforms, creator culture, and always-on content ecosystems now determine how fans discover, follow, and participate in sports. Teams no longer rely exclusively on broadcasts to reach audiences. Instead, they operate inside a dynamic media environment where stories spread across platforms, feeds, highlights, and creator networks long before a fan sits down to watch a full game.

Sports Media Is Evolving 

For decades, sports storytelling followed a predictable structure. Games occurred inside stadiums, television networks delivered those moments to audiences at home, and newspapers reported on them. Traditional media partners historically controlled much of the distribution while teams focused primarily on the competitive product.

Digital media has fundamentally altered that arrangement, and it continues to evolve. Jenna Winchell, Managing Director, Marketing at The Athletic, shared, “We have launched more audio formats, more video formats on that front, really bringing our expertise to life. We think of The Athletic as long form deep reporting, but it doesn’t have to be long to be deep and to be expert. So what can we get across in a short clip that actually shows the authentic reporting that our journalists and experts have?” 

But the proliferation of digital media doesn’t mean that analog is dead. As Winchell added, “We also still love analog because Dane Bugler is our our draft analyst, and he literally writes a 523 page NFL draft guide with over 2000 prospects, deep stories about where they grew up, what sports they played…From a marketing perspective, you hand somebody that textbook on the draft and it really means something. It shows the power of print. That’s amazing. It’s coming back.”

Sports Teams Are Becoming Media Companies

Today, teams produce and distribute their own content across a wide range of channels: social platforms, YouTube series, podcasts, newsletters, print and behind-the-scenes video formats.

Many organizations now operate internal content teams responsible for producing continuous digital media. Creative producers, editors, social strategists, and community managers collaborate to publish content continuously rather than only during game windows. The result is a new operating model. Teams now maintain editorial calendars similar to media companies, producing stories that keep fans engaged between games, during off-seasons, and across global time zones. In this environment, storytelling becomes a continuous conversation rather than a scheduled broadcast event.

The Social Feed Is the New Stadium

Bryan Srabian, VP of Brand Development and Digital Media at San Francisco Giants captured the shift: “When I started this, it was about wow, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, they’re the second screen. You watch a game and you have this phone as a second screen. Now it is the only screen. It’s not so much highlights as it is moments.” Srabian pointed to one of the Giants’ best-performing videos from last year as proof: a 102-year-old man throwing out the first pitch. It went viral not because it was a highlight, but because it touched people. “It’s those stories that the game brings together,” he said. “The platforms and technologies change, but the human emotion is the fabric that stays the same.”

Alexandria Leavenworth, VP, Creative and Strategic Marketing, NBC Sports Bay Area & California and NBC Bay Area adds, “There’s going to be a lot of repetitiveness, but it’s multiplatform and it’s authenticity. It’s about meeting the fans where they are.”

This changes how teams approach storytelling. Short-form video rewards immediacy, personality, and authenticity. Highly polished promotional videos can sometimes perform worse than spontaneous moments captured in real time. Fans respond to content that feels genuine rather than overly produced.A locker-room celebration, a candid player interview, or an unexpected sideline moment can reach millions of viewers within hours. Those clips frequently introduce new audiences to teams long before they ever watch a full match. 

For marketing leaders, the implication is clear. Visibility no longer depends solely on broadcast reach. Cultural moments that resonate across social platforms now drive discovery.

Athletes Are Becoming Media Brands

The rise of social media has also transformed the role of athletes in the sports media ecosystem. Players now maintain direct relationships with fans through their own channels. Millions of followers track athletes across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, where players share personal stories, training routines, community initiatives, and everyday experiences.

Name, image, and likeness rights have accelerated this shift even further. Athletes now operate as independent media brands with the ability to publish content without traditional intermediaries. This transformation reshapes collaboration between teams, athletes, and sponsors. Rather than controlling every narrative, sports marketing teams work alongside athletes as creative partners.

The partnership benefits everyone involved. Athletes gain platforms to tell authentic stories. Teams gain access to audiences who follow individual players closely. Brands benefit from partnerships with athletes whose personal influence often exceeds traditional advertising reach. The most successful sports marketing strategies now recognize athletes as central storytellers within the broader media ecosystem.

Fans Are Now Part of the Story

Perhaps the most significant change in sports media involves the role of fans themselves. Digital platforms encourage audiences to participate actively rather than simply watch. Fans remix highlights, create memes, produce commentary videos, and share their own reactions to moments on the field.

Sports organizations increasingly embrace this participatory culture. Fan-generated content appears frequently on official social channels. Community challenges, collaborative campaigns, and creator partnerships extend storytelling beyond the organization’s internal teams.

ModeratorCarolyn McArdle, who knows how to rally a crowd as the PA announcer for the San Francisco Giants, put it simply: “Fans are the biggest advertisers for you. They tell a friend, they put it on social media, they share a moment they saw.” Celessa Baker, VP of Marketing Partnerships atSEPHORAdescribed watching fans compete for Sephora gift bags dropping into the arena, including at Warriors games where the energy in the crowd was electric. That moment captured something real about how fans participate in brand experiences when those experiences are designed to be part of the event rather than adjacent to it. Fans do not simply consume stories anymore. They help create and amplify them.

The Future of Sports Storytelling

Sports will always revolve around competition, excitement, and shared experiences. What continues to evolve is how those moments reach audiences. Broadcast television once defined the sports media landscape. Today’s ecosystem looks far more dynamic. 

What was clear in that room at Lyft HQ was that the people doing this work aren’t waiting for the playbook to be written. They’re writing it in real time, experimenting with formats, listening to fans, and building media operations that look less like traditional sports marketing and more like something entirely new. For marketers in any industry trying to figure out how to tell stories that actually travel, that’s the most useful thing to take away from Playmakers: the teams winning at this aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones paying the closest attention.

Catch Up on the Series

➡ Part 1: How Bay Area Teams Are Redefining Sports Marketing
➡ Part 2: Beyond the Logo: The New Playbook for Sports Partnerships

Playmakers Bay Area Sports Marketing Summit was held on March 11, 2026 at Lyft HQ with the following list of esteemed speakers:

Session 1: Building a Brand: Inside the Rise of Bay Area Teams

Moderator: Carolyn McArdle, PA Announcer for the San Francisco Giants and co-host of the Morning Breeze on 98.1 The Breeze

• Kim Trinidad, VP Marketing & Operations, Golden State Warriors
• Edreece Arghandiwal, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Oakland Roots
• Brenden Mallette,Chief Revenue Officer,Bay Football Club
• Celessa Baker, VP of Marketing Partnerships, SEPHORA

Session 2: Beyond the Stadium: The New Sports Marketing Playbook

Moderator: Katie Hegarty, Sales Lead, Lyft Ads

• Alexandria Leavenworth, VP, Creative and Strategic Marketing, NBC Sports Bay Area & California and NBC Bay Area
• Shabnum Mehra Palomba, Executive VP, Digitas
• Bryan Srabian, VP of Brand Development and Digital Media, San Francisco Giants
• Jenna Winchell, Managing Director, Marketing, The Athletic

Huge thank you to our amazing sponsors Lyft Ads, iHeartMedia, StackAdapt, Life360 Ads, Causal, Justin Chu Photography, Peakbound Studio, and our annual sponsor, Workbox for helping bring this event to life.

Marketing is evolving fast—and none of us should have to figure it out alone. At the American Marketing Association, you’ll find marketers sharing real experiences, hard-earned lessons, and practical frameworks for navigating change with clarity and purpose. If that sounds like your kind of community, we’d love to have you! Become a member today.