Brand

ESPN Adds Five Social Media Stars To Creator Network

Published on August 4, 2025

ESPN has launched its third iteration of the ESPN Creator Network, adding five established social media creators to bring fans closer to major sporting events through social-first storytelling. The 2025 class features creators with a combined audience of more than 6 million followers across platforms.

The 2025 Creator Network class includes Brittney Elena, Emily Harrigan, Jaylin James, Lily Shimbashi, and Trey Phills. These creators will gain access to ESPN’s marquee sporting events, engage with ESPN talent and executives, and receive support to enhance their content strategies.

The program, which began in 2022, has already generated 9.7 million impressions and reached over 3.5 million fans in 2024 alone. According to ESPN, engagement rates for creator content are up to 13 times higher than typical social platform benchmarks.

This third class follows the 2024 roster, which featured 12 female digital content creators spanning sports, culture, and lifestyle genres. That initial class reportedly generated over 400 million cross-platform views, significantly expanding ESPN’s social reach.

Strategy Aligns with Industry Trends

The initiative comes as STN Digital’s recent report reveals personality-driven content consistently outperforms traditional sports highlights across all major leagues. Content showcasing player personalities rather than game highlights has demonstrated the highest engagement rates across platforms.

“This talented group is helping shape the future of sports storytelling with their creativity and authenticity,” said Kaitee Daley, ESPN’s SVP of Digital, Social, Streaming Content.

The Creator Network strategy aligns with emerging platform trends. While Instagram leads engagement for most sports leagues, TikTok has become particularly crucial for NFL content, accounting for 39 of the top 50 NFL posts with an average of 1.4 million engagements per post.

ESPN’s strategy focuses on three content categories that have shown exceptional performance across leagues: highlight videos with on-screen text (816x engagement rate lift), multiple-player prompt content (344% engagement rate lift), and mic’d up content (337x engagement rate lift).