Who Owns an Athlete’s Image?

Inside the Billion-Dollar Business of Sports Image Rights

Every day, a new athlete captures the world’s attention. A teenager makes history by scoring the winning goal in a Champions League match. A young tennis player lifts her first Grand Slam trophy. A Formula 1 driver celebrates a dramatic victory

under the lights of Circuit de Monaco. Overnight, these athletes become more than competitors; they become brands. Their faces appear on billboards, in video games, across social media, and on products sold globally.

Modern sport is no longer about winning trophies; it's one of the largest entertainment industries. From broadcasting rights and sponsorships to merchandise and digital media, billions of dollars circulate through the sports economy each year. As athletes become global celebrities, one of their most valuable assets is no longer just their sporting ability – it is their image.

This raises a crucial legal question: Who actually owns an athlete’s image?

The answer is not as simple as one might think.

What are Image Rights?

Although the name implies otherwise, image rights extend far beyond a photograph. Image rights are a person’s legal right to control and commercially exploit everything that makes them identifiable.

For athletes, this includes their:

● Name

● Photograph or likeness

● Voice

● Signature

● Nickname

● Autograph

● Appearance

● Reputation

● Personal story

● Distinctive characteristics

International sports lawyer Professor Ian Blackshaw explains that image rights do not relate only to the athlete as a physical being, but also to the athlete’s “persona”. In today’s sporting landscape, an athlete’s identity has become a valuable commercial asset capable of generating millions through sponsorships, endorsements, merchandising, advertising campaigns, documentaries, and video games. In essence, image rights give athletes the right to determine who can use their identity, how it can be used, and how much others must charge for that privilege.

But who owns an athlete’s image?

Although athletes create the value behind their own reputation, they are rarely the only people who control its commercial use. Rather, it is often shared or licensed among several different parties.

1) The Athlete: The Original Owner

Each athlete begins as the owner of his/her own identity. Followed by years of dedication, training, and success, creating the reputation that companies are willing to invest in. Therefore, the athlete typically has the first option to decide how their image is commercially exploited.

Many elite athletes go one step further by creating specialised “Image Rights Companies”, transferring or licensing their commercial rights into a separate company. Rather than receiving endorsement income personally, sponsorship payments are made to the company, allowing the athlete to manage licensing agreements separately from their playing salary. For the world’s biggest stars, their image becomes a business of its own.

Case Study: Cristiano Ronaldo

Few athletes demonstrate the commercial power of image rights better than Cristiano Ronaldo. Beyond football, Ronaldo’s personal brand is valued more than just his game. His image appears in global advertising campaigns, his CR7 clothing and fragrance are sold worldwide, and he has signed endorsement agreements worth hundreds of millions with companies such as Nike.

But even Ronaldo does not retain complete control over every use of his image.

Throughout his career, clubs have negotiated his image rights as part of his employment contracts. Clubs require the player’s permission to use their likeness for new kit launches, promote matches, or sell merchandise.

Historically, clubs such as Real Madrid negotiated detailed image-rights arrangements with star players. One of the club’s most well-known commercial structures reportedly allowed players, like Ronaldo, to retain a significant share of their individual image-rights income while granting the club rights to use their image for club-related commercial activities.

This demonstrates that in football, image rights are often shared rather than owned exclusively by either the player or the club.

2) Clubs and Teams

Football clubs are businesses as much as sporting organisations. To market tickets, shirts, sponsors, and global tours, they need access to their players’ images. For this reason, most professional contracts require athletes to license certain image rights to the club.

These rights generally allow clubs to use players in:

● Promotional campaigns

● Matchday programmes

● Social media

● Kit launches

● Merchandise

● Sponsor advertising

The exact arrangement differs from club to club, but image rights are now a central part of modern player negotiations.

3) Governing Bodies and Leagues

Image rights are also licensed to leagues and sporting federations. Without these arrangements, organisations could not legally feature athletes in:

● EA Sports FC

● NBA 2K

● NHL video games

● Trading cards

● Tournament advertising

● Broadcast graphics

● Official league marketing

However, these arrangements do not always coexist seamlessly. In 2023, the Norwegian skier Lucas Braathen unexpectedly stepped away from competitive

touring at age twenty-three after disagreements surrounding sponsorship restrictions imposed by the Norwegian Ski Federation. The conflict arose when Braathen participated in a campaign for J. Lindeberg, a clothing brand competing directly against the Federation’s official sponsor, Helly Hansen.

Despite the campaign being an independent commercial venture, the Federation insisted that it breached its sponsorship exclusivity arrangements. Braathen believed the federation’s rules prevented him from freely managing his commercial image and sponsorship opportunities. His case highlighted that image rights are not just a legal concept and they can have a direct impact on sporting careers.

4) Individual Sports: Greater Freedom

Unlike team sports like football, volleyball, and handball, many individual athletes have greater freedom over their commercial images since they are not contracted to a club. Their brand is typically managed by their commercial team and in their own direction.

Case Study: Coco Gauff

A renowned example would include the American tennis player Coco Gauff. At just twenty-one years old, Gauff emerged as one of tennis’s biggest commercial faces. Alongside her success on court, she has signed endorsement deals with brand including New Balance, Rolex, Bose and Head. Her partnership with New Balance has gone beyond conventional sportswear endorsements.

In April 2025, Gauff collaborated with New Balance and luxury fashion house Miu Miu on an exclusive tennis capsule collection, featuring custom match outfits and

reimagined versions of her signature Coco CG2 shoes. Moreover, Gauff was actively involved in shaping the collection, contributing her own preferences on silhouettes and designs. This highlights how athletes can transform their sporting profiles into distinctive commercial identities, becoming collaborators in the brands they represent rather than simply the faces of their advertising campaigns.

Unlike football players, Gauff does not need to negotiate image rights with a club. Instead, she personally licenses her identity through carefully negotiated sponsorship agreements that determine:

● Where her image may appear

● How long campaigns can run

● Which countries the license covers

● Which competing brand she cannot endorse

In tennis, an athlete’s personal brand is often their greatest commercial asset. Their image rights remain largely under their own control, allowing them to build a business independent of any team.

1) Brands: Buying Reputation

When companies sign athletes, they are not simply paying for sporting ability. They are buying influence. A successful endorsement agreement allows a company to benefit from an athlete’s reputation, credibility, and popularity.

These contracts usually specify:

● The products the athlete will promote

● Where advertisements may appear

● How long the campaign lasts

● The territories where the licence applies

● Whether the athlete may endorse competing brands

Many sponsorship agreements also contain morality clauses, allowing companies to terminate the agreement if an athlete’s behaviour damages the brand’s reputation.

Case study: Connor McDavid

Ice hockey illustrates yet another approach to image rights. Connor McDavid, captain of the Edmonton Oilers and one of the NHL’s biggest stars, had endorsement agreements with several major companies. At the same time, his image also appears in NHL promotional campaigns, EA Sports NHL video games, official trading cards, and league advertising.

Unlike many footballers or tennis players, McDavid’s image is not only licensed individually. The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association negotiate collective licensing agreements that allow the league to commercially exploit players’ identities across numerous products and platforms.

As a result, McDavid continues to own the commercial value of his personal brand, while certain uses of his image are managed collectively through league-wide licensing arrangements.

The Rise of NIL(Name, Image, and Likeness)

Image rights have undergone one of their biggest transformations in American college sport. For decades, student-athletes were prohibited from earning money from their own identity. Today, under the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules, college athletes can sign endorsement deals, establish businesses, register trademarks, and monetise their personal brands while still competing at university. Many student-athletes now create companies to manage their commercial image before they even become professionals.

So, who really owns the image?

The answer depends on the circumstances. The athletes create the commercial value. However, clubs, leagues, sponsors, governing bodies, and commercial partners often receive licenses allowing them to use that value for specific purposes.

Image rights have become one of the most valuable commercial assets in modern sport. For some athletes, endorsement income eventually exceeds the salary they earn from competing. At the same time, poorly drafted contracts can severely restrict future opportunities by allowing clubs or organisations to continue using an athlete's image long after the relationship has ended.

As sport increasingly overlaps with fashion, entertainment, gaming, and social media, the commercial value of an athlete's identity will only continue to grow. Athletes may create the value behind their image, but they rarely control every aspect of how it is used.

Through contracts, image rights are licensed to clubs, leagues, sponsors, broadcasters, and commercial partners, each receiving carefully defined rights over one of sport’s most valuable commodities.

Whether it is Cristiano Ronaldo promoting a global sportswear brand, Coco Gauff fronting an international luxury campaign, or Connor McDavid appearing on the cover of a video game, the legal principle remains the same: their image has become intellectual property with immense commercial value.

In today’s sporting world, an athlete’s greatest asset is no longer just their performance on the field, court, or ice – it is the brand they built beyond it.