/ Athlete Personal Branding: The New Frontier of Intellectual Property in Sports

Laura Hernández Bethermyt
Senior Associate

For decades, the economic value of sports was measured primarily in terms of results, goals, races, medals, and records. Today, however, that paradigm is no longer sufficient. In the contemporary ecosystem of professional sports, performance is no longer the sole generator of value. So too is the athlete’s identity—understood as narrative, image, aesthetics, and cultural positioning. In this quiet shift, intellectual property (IP) has ceased to be a contractual add-on and has become the core of an athletic career.

An athlete’s personal brand is now a strategic IP asset, far more complex than a simple sponsorship contract. Contemporary athletes increasingly operate as independent cultural brands, capable of influencing fashion, consumption, and social narratives. This transformation alters not only the economics of sports but also the way we understand authorship, exploitation, and control of intangible rights.

The Athlete as Rights Holder

Traditionally, the relationship between athletes and brands was structured through sponsorship, a controlled transfer of image rights in exchange for visibility and compensation. Today, that model feels limiting. Elite athletes—and increasingly those in emerging disciplines as well—register trademarks, design clothing lines, control visual aesthetics, and negotiate licensing deals, often with a degree of autonomy that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago.

This evolution reflects a structural shift, as the athlete is no longer merely an advertising medium but a creator of symbolic value, capable of competing with and collaborating alongside traditional brands in the realms of fashion and lifestyle—especially with the rise of the digital age. From this perspective, IP protects not only commercial interests but also professional identity.

Building Authentic Brands

An athlete’s personal brand extends far beyond their name or face. It includes a consistent aesthetic, clothing choices, public stances, and selective collaborations, to name a few.

In this sense, sports fashion functions as an extension of personal expression. It is no coincidence that athletes from various disciplines now actively participate in designing collections or include creative clauses in sponsorship contracts. Control over one’s image—and how it translates into products—is, in legal terms, control over the exploitation of a set of interrelated IP rights, such as trademarks, image rights, copyrights, and, in some cases, industrial designs.

IP and Power Imbalances

However, this phenomenon is not without its tensions. The possibility of turning a sports identity into a strong brand depends largely on access to legal counsel, strategic management, and visibility platforms. IP, far from automatically democratizing these opportunities, tends to reproduce power imbalances: those with resources can structure and protect their brand, while those without are subject to restrictive contracts or the appropriation of their image by third parties.

From this perspective, the athlete’s personal brand is also a space of contention. Many conflicts arise when the boundaries between the athlete’s individual identity and the commercial interests of clubs, federations, or sponsors are not clearly defined. IP then becomes a terrain of negotiation, but also of control.

Here the critical question arises. Does the consolidation of the athlete’s personal brand represent a form of empowerment or another step toward the comprehensive commodification of the athlete? The answer is not binary. On the one hand, IP allows many athletes to diversify their income and plan their careers beyond retirement. On the other, it intensifies the pressure to maintain an attractive, valuable, coherent, and permanently exploitable identity.

This logic can transform the athlete into a business, where every gesture, image, or silence carries contractual implications. IP, rather than simply being a protective tool, becomes the framework that structures this constant expectation of identity-based performance.

A necessary reflection on IP and sports

It is tempting to celebrate the role of IP in sports without nuance. However, the athlete’s personal brand demands a deeper reflection. The innovation protected here is not merely technical or creative; it is personal. It protects lifestyles, discourses, and bodies transformed into symbols.

The question is not whether IP should intervene—it already does—but how it does so and whom it benefits. Recognizing the athlete as a trademark owner is a step forward. But it also requires asking whether we are building an ecosystem where identity is only valuable to the extent that it can be registered, licensed, and monetized.

The transformation of the athlete into a brand is not a marginal phenomenon: it is one of the most visible expressions of how intellectual property permeates professional life today. This model can offer unprecedented independence and opportunities, but it also imposes a logic of constant exposure and prolonged economic control. The challenge lies not in denying that reality, but in asking whether the law is supporting the athlete as a person or merely maximizing their value as a product. Much of the future of IP in sports hinges on that answer.