Without Instagram, Swiss sports star struggles to make a living

Social media presents a huge opportunity to gain athlete sponsorship. Keystone

Olympic bronze medalist Jan Scherrer says he can only make a living from snowboarding if he is present on social media. His bachelor thesis found that many of his sports peers are in the same situation, the SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday.

Scherrer is currently Switzerland’s best snowboarder. The 28-year-old halfpipe specialist recently nabbed medals at the Olympics and World Championships as well as at the X-Games, another major event in the extreme sports scene.

“I just don’t like the fact that the importance of social media for individual athletes like me has become almost greater than my sporting success,” the newspaperExternal link quotes him as saying.

To be viable financially, Scherrer depends on private sponsors. During negotiations, the conversation quickly turns to social media. Every donor wants to know how they can draw profits from the snowboarder on these online platforms.

Scherrer himself is not a fan of social media. He would find it odd to flood his almost 20,000 followers on Instagram with selfies and other banalities from his everyday life – even if this would be well received by many. He also sees the social problems that social media can create.  Data leaks concern him.

But because he doesn’t have a big name compared to some of the big stars of world sports – his successes are sometimes given little or no mention in mainstream media – Scherrer says he needs to find other ways to remain attractive to sponsors. There are barely any options beyond trying to monetise on social media with that winning combination of top-class sport and self-expression.

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One question is whether all that extra effort pays off. Scherrer, like many other athletes, manages his own accounts because he can’t afford a professional social media team. Another question is at what point all that focus on social media begins to impair athletic performance. Scherrer dedicated his bachelor’s thesis in business administration to these topics.

Conducting surveys and interviews, he found that many other athletes feel the same way: it has become impossible to survive without social media. He can only think of one exception from the Swiss ski and snowboard scene. “Lara Gut-Behrami no longer runs her accounts,” he notes. “But she has a big name and a wide reach because everyone is reporting on her anyway.”

This does not apply to Scherrer. Even as a successful snowboard pro he earns far too little from prize money alone. Last season is a good example because he won World Cup and X Games medals but made only CHF15,000 after taxes from that. Private sponsors account for 60 to 70% of his income; prize money and sports aid for the rest.

Chasing clicks and likes

Scherrer has been in the snowboard circuit for 15 years and has witnessed the change in self-marketing firsthand. When social media became established as a means of marketing and companies shed their skepticism, he too initially received more offers for individual posts, with payment based on the number of clicks and likes.

It wasn’t always worth the effort. Professional video shoots could take up to two days to produce and were only seen by a few people. The problem is many social media platforms work in such a way that a post that doesn’t perform well right away gets viewed by fewer users; and vice versa. “This kind of collaboration with sponsors thus became too unpredictable for athletes,” says Scherrer.

That’s one of the reasons why practically all athletes today prefer the classic, long-term sponsorship contracts. Almost without exception, these now regulate social media presence, but the number of likes and clicks is secondary. Scherrer had nine such sponsors last season.

There are no specific guidelines or strings attached. “It’s enough if I mention the sponsor in the description under the post,” Scherrer says.