Whether it's Ilona Maher spreading body positivity, Fred Richard flipping into a pair of shorts, or Stephen Nedoroscik's now-famous glasses, many Olympians competing in the 2024 Games are not only world-class athletes — they're world-class social media creators, too.
Some even refer to Paris 2024 as the "TikTok Olympics" for the sheer amount of social media moments and personalities that have burst onto our phones' screens leading up to and during the Games. After all, many athletes went into this year's Olympics already having a dedicated social media fanbase, and brought their followers along for more laid-back POV than what you'd catch on network coverage.
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"You have a body of athletes that is almost entirely Gen Z," Director of the University of Rhode Island's Sports Media and Communications program Molly Yanity said. "They are all very connected. They are overwhelmingly on TikTok... They're really letting us into their world."
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For Yanity, the first Olympian that came to mind who is capitalizing on their social media brand is Maher, the rugby star who just scored a bronze medal last week. Maher is a Vermont native, and played rugby for Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, before heading to Tokyo for Team U.S.A. in 2021, and becoming an Olympic medalist in Paris in 2024.
Maher has over two million followers on TikTok, where she shows off her sense of humor, interacts with fellow Olympians and even takes on the limitations of the BMI scale.
"She's really done this, with with kind of a just grassroots, 'here's my phone and my TikTok app' and just just really going about it and making her own brand," Yanity said, recalling Maher's viral clip of the cardboard beds in Tokyo during the last summer Games. "The sport [women's rugby] has kind of caught up with Ilona in a little bit of a way, in terms of popularity."
Another standout star of this year's Games is men's gymnastics star Stephen Nedoroscik, whose medal-winning pommel horse routine, humble spirit and glasses have earned him the nickname "Clark Kent."
The Worcester native's gone viral, too, for openly discussing his eye condition and not letting it hold him back from achieving his dreams.
His teammate, and fellow Massachusetts native, Fred Richard, is another social media star, who goes by the username frederickflips on TikTok. You guessed it, Richard wows his hundreds of thousands of followers performing his otherworldly flips, but also gives an inside look to his training and experience.
"With the reel format, we are getting to see what they're doing when they're doing it, who they're doing it with," Yanity said. "And that gives us a peek into their lives that, that we don't otherwise have."
Yanity said the ability for athletes to build their social media brand gives them more power and autonomy to earn a broader range of sponsorship deals. The social media buzz surrounding the athletes is also likely driving more traditional ratings to the Olympics, Yanity believes.
"They know what to share and what not to share in a way that gets them those those eyeballs from fans, therefore the attention of sponsors," Yanity said. "
NBC has enjoyed strong ratings for the Paris 2024 Games, reporting numbers far beyond the COVID-mangled Tokyo games, and a bigger opening ceremony audience than Rio 2016.
Theories range as to what's driving the viewership numbers, with everything from social media, athlete storylines, a smaller time zone difference to Snoop Dogg's presence being floated as driving factors.
