The sports world is still buzzing over this past weekend’s NFL draft. Going into the draft, University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders was projected to be one of the top draft picks.  

Some pundits predicted he would be drafted as high as No. 2 overall while others had him falling, perhaps to the second round. Yet, no one predicted what ultimately would happen. For what turned out to be days, team after team decided against drafting Sanders. He would finally hear his name called on day three of the draft when the Cleveland Browns selected him in the fifth round with the 144th overall pick. 

The financial implications of Sanders’ fall are significant. Had he been a top 10 pick, he could have earned $40 million or more. Now, as a fifth rounder, he will likely earn about a tenth of that. 

But there could be a silver lining. 

Throughout the weekend, Sanders quickly became the talk of the sports world, with both news and sports outlets alike covering his unprecedented freefall down the draft board. He potentially found himself being discussed even more so than had been selected in the first round, which is not the worst thing for a professional athlete’s personal brand. 

Thilo Kunkel, a professor in Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, followed the situation with Sanders closely over the weekend. Kunkel is one of the foremost academic experts on athlete brand development and monetization, and he believes that all might not be lost for Sanders when it comes to his brand following this past weekend. 

Temple Now caught up with Kunkel to get a better understanding of what this means for Sanders and his brand moving forward. 

Temple Now: Heading into the NFL draft, some experts had Shedeur Sanders going as high as No. 2 overall. Others had him falling to the second round. No one predicted him falling all the way to the fifth round though. What does this mean for his brand moving forward? 

Thilo Kunkel: By getting drafted much lower than one would expect, as well as much lower than where his numbers and stats suggest he should be drafted, he really became the story of the draft. He was on national news all throughout the weekend, and when you look at Google Trends, he has gone through the roof. He gained 180,000 Instagram followers on Sunday alone. So, he has 2.4 million followers, and about 200,000 of those came this weekend. That represents almost a 10% increase of his social media following, so there are some potential monetization opportunities there down the road. 

Because he fell, he also now really has a story to tell. If he backs it up on the field in the upcoming NFL season it becomes an even bigger story. He now has a chip on his shoulder likely, too, and folks are going to be following to see what happens. He was overlooked, so can he succeed, despite teams not believing in him?  

So, I think there is a lot of potential for personal brand stories, but then also for brand monetization from other brands wanting to associate with him. His last name is Sanders, KFC already tweeted at him with Colonel Sanders, noting that his recipe had been rejected over a certain number of times, and he should just keep going and he’ll succeed. So, I think there is already a natural fit for brand activation and sponsorship deals. But then, what happens if he backs it up on the field and shows that he was incorrectly overlooked? That really the potential for personal brand-building that could be much more powerful than if he was drafted in the lower second or higher third round. 

TN: America loves underdog stories, and it’s interesting how that’s what Sanders has not essentially become. How does that impact his brand? That is something that was always a big part of seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady’s brand, as he was drafted in the sixth round. 

Kunkel: There are essentially two camps there. The one is the camp that says, oh, he was overlooked, and the NFL is out for him to get him. And the other camp is saying, well, he gets what he deserves for being a bit arrogant in interviews and for how he reportedly approached some of the meetings of not being prepared. 

I think the difference between Brady and Sanders is that no one expected Brady to be a top five or first-round pick, and I think (Sander’s father) Deion did not help Shedeur’s brand in some of the claims he made. Obviously, being associated with the Sanders’ brand is helpful, but it probably didn’t help that he was making claims about how his son is going to be a top five draft pick. That really hasn’t helped, and that’s a difference to Brady. Neither Brady nor anyone associated with him ever made that claim. He was never at that level of self-confidence. 

But beyond that, the parallels are absolutely there, especially in that both Sanders and Brady were overlooked in the first few rounds of the draft. If Sanders can back it up and prove that he was wrongfully overlooked and he becomes a starting quarterback over the next few years, then he has a perfect brand story of overcoming the odds. And I think brands will absolutely want to eat that up. For example, I think it would be a perfect fit for Under Armour, as that is a brand that challenges the status quo. But we will have to wait and see if he delivers on the field.  

TN: While I know he lost out on first-round money, could his brand have actually benefited from the fall? 

Kunkel: I have to say partly. We completed a study for the scholarly journal Sport Marketing Quarterly focused on the NFL draft a few years ago, and the number one predictor for a player growing their social media following during the NFL draft was going in the first round. I think what we essentially saw happen was a “U shape,” in that if he were selected at the top of the first round, his brand would have been at the top of that U but then fall down if he was drafted in the late second or third round. However, because he fell all the way to the fifth round, the media narrative just increased, and he got another bump where he rose to the top of the other side of the U.  

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