Q&A: How UVA’s Olympic Presence Can Enhance the University’s Brand

While the University of Virginia won’t begin its next athletics season until Aug. 7, when the women’s soccer team takes on the University of Tennessee in an exhibition match, there’s plenty of opportunity to cheer on Cavaliers before then.

UVA has 17 current or former student-athletes, representing eight countries, participating in the Paris Olympics, which ends Aug. 11. Two other Wahoos, rising senior rower Skylar Dahl and School of Law alumnus and goalball player Matt Simpson, are competing in the Paris Paralympics, which start later next month.

That’s a lot of orange and blue seeking gold, silver and bronze.

Millions of viewers are expected to tune in daily and nightly to these Games, opening a unique platform for the Hoos to shine – especially in women’s swimming, with UVA’s Todd DeSorbo serving as the head coach and a roster that features five Cavaliers.

How can this kind of exposure positively impact the UVA brand? We caught up with Darden School of Business professor Kim Whitler to find out. Whitler, the co-author of “Athlete Brands: How To Benefit from Your Name, Image & Likeness,” has expertise in marketing strategy, marketing performance and brand management. Whitler’s most recent article, “How Marketers Choose College Athlete Influencers,” appears in the May-June edition of the Harvard Business Review magazine.

Q. The UVA swimming program is sure to benefit from these Olympics, but how can its showing in Paris also benefit the University as a whole?

A. When a university’s athletes compete at the highest level – on behalf of the country – it can create awareness among the public of the university’s athletic strength, potentially help drive interest in attending the university or supporting the university in different ways.

Q. In what ways, specifically?

A. I’m not an alum of UVA, but I’m a very big fan of the athletic program at which I work, and seeing athletes compete at the Olympics can increase your pride and deepen your appreciation for and connection to the University. It helps bring the broader University community together in support of our athletes.

Interestingly, my father, who is in his mid-80s (who also isn’t an alum), and I share articles back and forth about UVA athletes competing at the Olympics. His only connection to UVA athletics is my passion for our athletes.

It’s not just winning, but it’s winning with high-caliber, high-quality young people. It’s not a one-way street. We are committed to helping them achieve their goals and dreams in and out of the pool, in and out of their sport.

This type of awareness can help support admissions. It can help support future athlete recruiting. And it can help create more reasons for alumni, family and friends to want to support the University. It can really help support and strengthen the UVA brand.

Q. In terms of marketing gain, what is the difference between your school having success on the Olympic stage versus, for example, your school winning a national championship in a sport like men’s basketball (as UVA did in 2019) or football?

A. It helps the international brand. UVA has a very good reputation in the U.S., but this can help strengthen and grow the international perception.

The reality is having a very successful performance in the Olympics, as a college, as a university, will drive awareness globally. When you throw in the recent news about UVA being called a “New Ivy,” you then have this nice combo of a great school and great athletes, leading to a great university for prospects to consider.

Q. UVA seemingly has a great human interest story with sisters Alex and Gretchen Walsh competing together on the U.S. Olympic swim team. How can they capitalize on their growing fame with a strong performance in Paris?

A. Performance and success is the biggest driver of your brand. What is their ceiling? I don’t know. If they break all sorts of records and it’s the most successful sibling team across any sport ever in the Olympics. It’s limitless. It really is limitless.

Where could this platform lead to in the future? Well, Michael Phelps (who is broadcasting for NBC now) is showing us it could lead to commentating opportunities, and I have to imagine those are fairly lucrative. It can lead to clothing lines, and potentially to sponsors who are big in the swimming industry.

Q. These are the first Summer Games since college athletes have been able to profit off their name, image and likeness. As you watch those student-athletes from UVA – and other schools – compete in Paris, what will you be looking for in this space? This seems like a huge opportunity for them. 

A. A large part of this is how they perform. When you win, your profile rises, you get more news media, it can change their valuation.

At a very simple level, being in the Olympics changes their valuation. They’ve made the Olympics, they’re going to generate national and international news. They perform well, it changes their valuation because when they come back and they start negotiating with sponsors, they are no longer just a college athlete – they’re an Olympian. And if they’re an Olympic winner, the value of that is just different.

Q. How can they then maximize that potential?

A. It all comes down to the brand that they create through this moment. The way in which you present yourself after something happens in the Olympics contributes to strengthening or weakening your brand. The performance itself is the main effect; it’s the big enchilada. But it’s also how they handle themselves in interviews and how they handle, as they say, “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” … all public-facing interactions can impact how potential sponsors view their brands. This can then impact interest and valuation.

In the research I did with recent UVA alumnus Graham Twente, we surprisingly found that many of the top brands sponsor college athletes without a large following. They are looking for the “athlete brand attributes” that will appeal to their own brands’ consumers. That’s why how the athletes present themselves at the Olympics can be more important than the size of their following.

And I think this an area where UVA student-athletes can shine.

This article first appeared in UVA Today.