USA Fencing relies on creators to attract new fans ahead of the 2028 Olympics

Though the last two Olympics have heavily featured creators (from athletes competing at the games to official NBCUniversal creators) this will be the first one on American soil since they were welcomed into the villages, sidelines, and broadcasts. 

Summer Olympic sports like soccer and basketball have massive, built-in fanbases, thanks in large part to the massive professional leagues that exist across the globe. But more niche sports, and the Olympians who participate in them, have to pull many levers to get eyeballs and sponsorship dollars — and their biggest lever is creators. 

“For previous generations, the game was the front door to fandom. For Gen Z, creators, culture, and algorithms have become the side door,” said Monica Chun, president of ACC. “Creators shouldn’t just be viewed as media partners to amplify what’s happening [at the Olympics]. They’re often the very reason someone discovers an athlete or even a sport in the first place.”

Phil Andrews, chief executive officer of USA Fencing, knows this all too well. That’s why he’s ramping up creator activations more than two years ahead of the big games, including bringing fencers (like fencing’s married Olympians, Lee Kiefer and Gerek Meinhardt, who have more than 100,000 followers combined on Instagram and 1.2 million likes on TikTok), creators, and other athletes to the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina earlier this year. 

“We were the only summer sport to send athletes…one of our Olympians fenced [gymnast and NBC correspondent] Laurie Hernandez, who is now considered a creator in most respects with over a million followers,” Andrews said. 

Kaila McWilliams is CMO at boutique talent agency, Smith + Saint, which represents Kiefer and Meinhardt. She told Digiday that the more eyes on niche Olympic sports, the more Olympians can build up their online presence as creators, establishing a secondary source of revenue outside of sport-related sponsorships. She’s seen first-hand how USA Fencing’s awareness play benefitted her fencing creators. 

Cleverly, Olympic governing bodies rely on creator-athletes outside of their sport to help gain awareness in a sort of cross-promotional content push, like Hernandez fencing Lee.

“We’re already starting to see sports tapping athletes who maybe aren’t competing in those specific Olympic games to be true boots on the ground content creators because they’re really the only people that understand how to tell a story through the lens of an Olympian,” Williams said. “That was a huge success for the Winter Olympics.” 

It worked for USA Fencing. Since it started its creator program in December 2025, average monthly impressions are up 36.9%, totalling 4.75 million a month.

“I think we’ve probably done more than anybody,” Andrews told Digiday of USA Fencing’s creator push. “All of our national governing bodies are fairly small nonprofits, where our largest slice of our budget needs to go towards athlete support and preparing our teams to go and compete…generally the likes of fencing, weightlifting, even gymnastics are not going to have huge paid marketing budgets.” 

Andrews’ “scrappy” USA Fencing marketing team started earnestly courting creators during its last major competitive season, which ran October 2025 to July 2026. The goal is simple: expose new people to fencing, grow the fandom, and the sport by getting more swords in more hands. 

They’re hiring a variety of creators, some with fewer than 100,000 followers, and some who might initially seem like a stretch — like Star Wars stunt coordinator, Nick Gillard. USA Fencing will be at this year’s New York Comic Con, doing a saber and lightsaber masterclass with Gillard, along with two actors who have played Jedi Knights (Andrews wouldn’t share who), in the hopes that they can pull in new fencing fans through Star Wars creators. 

USA Fencing’s biggest creator push will come just before NYCC. Next month, the USA Fencing Creator Showdown will take place in New York City’s Pier 17, with Olympians facing off against creators known for fitness, dancing and comedy who combined have over 300 million followers across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. 

“Our initial target was 60 million impressions, we’re now reasonably expecting to go over 100 million,” Andrews said. USA Fencing is taking a page out of British Cycling’s book — earlier this year it put on the Lloyds BMX Creator Showdown, pairing professional cyclists with creators in head-to-head showdowns. 

“It’s the largest lineup of followers ever put together for such a challenge outside of soccer, and frankly, if you take IShowSpeed out of the Creator Cup, it’s pretty close,” Andrews said, referencing YouTube’s FIFA Creator Cup that took place this summer.