The Journal of Sport Management’s article, “The Influence of Personal Branding and Institutional Factors on the Name, Image, and Likeness Value of Collegiate Athletes’ Social Media Posts” (2023), analyzes the effects of personal branding factors and institutional factors on the social media NIL value of men’s and women’s college basketball athletes in California. The authors tested three hypotheses regarding the relationship between personal branding and NIL value, as well as three hypotheses regarding institutional factors and NIL value. They found:
- No significant association between, “the quality of a collegiate’s Instagram biographical information and their social media NIL value.”
- There was a significant association between, “a collegiate athlete’s post count and their social media NIL value.”
- There was a positive association between, “account verification status and social media NIL value.”
- “A collegiate athlete’s level of competition was significantly positively associated with their social media NIL value.”
- There was a, “significant positive relationship between an athlete’s NIL value and the social media following associated with their university’s brand.”
- Sport gender had a significant association with social media NIL value when collegiate athletes at all levels of competition were included in the analysis, but no significant association was found when restricting the analysis to only Division I athletes.”
Assuming I choose to move forward with athletes and social media as my final topic choice, this article will be incredibly helpful to my research. Unlike the article I wrote about in Blog #3, this article provides quantitative data on the relationship between NCAA athletes and social media in the era of NIL. This article highlights NIL and personal branding, which are some of the positive factors of athletes using social media. Something I still need to address in my research is finding quantitative data on the negative effects of social media on athletes, particularly when it comes to criticism and mental health.