Bypassing the gatekeepers

Once invisible, the Matildas are now everywhere, spanning worlds from football to high-end fashion. The questions we’re now grappling with are: What does it mean to go from no one watching to everyone watching? From too little to too much interest? (When fans are, for example, creating entire TikToks to unpack the complexities around teammates dating teammates.) And: When your brand is built on a direct-to-fan connection and now unsustainable accessibility, how do you manage those parasocial demands? Complicating this is the fact that fans follow players more than teams – the demand is more individualised, the load more concentrated.