Key conclusions
Sport is not only about achievements and willpower, but also about communication
“The most important role of the Ministry of Sports today, is to create opportunities for an open dialogue with society, with athletes, with coaches in order to realistically assess the current situation and all the risks that arise due to very tough sanctions from international sports organizations. On the other hand, we need to evaluate our resources, and understand the potential of our national sports system,” Oleg Matytsin, Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation.
“An athlete, first of all, should be engaged in the development and popularization of their sport. This can be achieved through meetings, master classes, and competitions, maybe even personal ones,” Nikita Nagornyy, Olympic Champion in Artistic Gymnastics; Founder, Gymnastic Club “Academy of Champions of Nikita Nagornyy”.
Athletes can set an example of resilience to younger generations
“There is a path to medals, and medals begin the path to the brand. But the path to medals for young athletes begins when they know what they work for, when they see their heroes, when they see the winners. And this should be an example for them. Today, they write a lot that there is a change of the elites. And, of course, we would like the elites to be the people who deserve it. These are athletes who have given years to their sport. It is about hard work, discipline, and organization. These athletes should be an example for the younger generation,” Yury Krasovsky, President, Liga Stavok (a bookmaker company).
“We arranged a tour of Russia – we will hold more than 15 master classes (one has already been held in Kazan recently). We love it. We used to not have time for that because there were preparations for competitions, the World Championship, European Championship, Olympic Games. And we would always refuse, we could hold a maximum of one master class in Moscow or St. Petersburg, we didn’t go anywhere else. And now we will travel around Russia, the children are waiting for us and are very happy. When we held a master class in Kazan, they said: are these real Dina and Arina? They were very excited, and we would like to share our experience and tell them some secrets so that they have an incentive to continue to train and perform,” Dina Averina, 18-time World Rhythmic Gymnastics Champion.
PROBLEMS
Athletes want to develop beyond their sport but lack the resources
“You need to devote a lot of time to maintaining your media presence. I understand very well how much energy and time it takes to publish one post or say “here, I’ve practiced today”. When you have intense training and preparation for a competition, all you want to do after the competition is eat and go to bed. It is necessary for a person to have a desire to do that,” Nikita Nagornyy, Olympic Champion in Artistic Gymnastics; Founder, Gymnastic Club “Academy of Champions of Nikita Nagornyy”.
“I love to immerse myself in what I do. I was never able to move away from swimming, in order to fully engage in my own products. But maybe after achieving my ambitious personal goals, my popularity will allow me to fully promote it,” Evgeny Rylov, Two-time Olympic Swimming Champion.
“Sport is so draining when you practice from morning to evening, and you have only one goal in life, it is your sport, your medals, your competitions. I managed to overcome that after I retired from sport, but it took me several years to recover,” Samira Mustafaeva, Blogger; Co-Founder, Main Coach, SM Stretching Studio.
To develop a personal brand, athletes lack communication with each other and from outside
“Collaboration between athletes and bloggers is a great thing. I don’t understand why there is no such bridge… Athletes are not getting younger. What do they do next? We understand an athlete’s path to a medal. All athletes said today that they have coaches, the Ministry of Sports supports them. And who will lead them to the brand?” Alexey Stolyarov, Blogger.
“The Ministry of Sport does not use the opportunities that give social networks enough. We will certainly pay the most serious attention to this, because the most important thing is the value of communication, human communication. And sports have huge potential. When people join sports groups, they start communicating. But these are usually some specific tasks set by the coach, and these tasks sometimes narrow the worldview and horizons of the athletes. The paths to the medal and from the medal to the brand are not two different paths. It is one path. You cannot win a medal and then start from scratch to move to the brand,” Oleg Matytsin, Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation.
SOLUTIONS
People outside the sports world can help athletes on their journey to personal brands
“We are used to training. We are used to living in a certain routine in a sports family that does not give you the opportunity to think about the wrong things. You are constantly guided, you have mentors, you have responsibility. I had an idea to launch my own charitable foundation… I hope that athletes will cooperate with us. We will provide four types of support to athletes: legal help, psychological counselling, help with education, assistance in changing of occupation. We will provide curators to those athletes and they will see their projects through,” Nikita Mazepin, Russian Racing Driver.
“I would like to see a bridge between bloggers, people who are interested in promoting athletes, because we are open, we really want to show our athletes. We really want to talk about how cool they are. We want to show their problems,” Alexey Stolyarov, Blogger.
“In any case, there must be a community… There must be a desire not only to work, but also to communicate. Athletes are very private people,” Nikita Nagornyy, Olympic Champion in Artistic Gymnastics; Founder, Gymnastic Club “Academy of Champions of Nikita Nagornyy”.
Sports receive aid from a variety of sources
“Over 2021, bookmakers financed national Russian sports in the amount of about 21 billion roubles, almost 10 billion came from mandatory binding contributions. I want to say that in 2020 it was 2.7 billion roubles. The beginning was laid in 2017, and since April, targeted contributions for the development of sports started. In the 2018 the amount was 800 million roubles... Also 6 billion roubles come from the sponsorship of sports broadcasts, sponsorship packages,” Yury Krasovsky, President, Liga Stavok (a bookmaker company).
