This article was written in Mid-2025, on my LinkedIn page.
It’s been a blast recently working on another successful Gather Round with the AFL Marketing team, seeing great results across the board with ticket sales, activations and ultimately fan experience. Running a variety of Retail, Travel, Premium Hospitality and Influencer activity from paid digital on an event this size is definitely a career highlight to date. Shoutout to all involved in bringing Gather Round to life ⚡
Working on events such as this encourages me to look at other events I’m passionate about with a different lens, and in recent weeks I’ve been loving life, tuning into 2 of my bucket list events that couldn’t be any more different: The Masters, and Wrestlemania
Both events had something going into it that drove an emotional investment, having Rory McIlroy chasing the career grand slam, the first since Tiger Woods, and John Cena chasing his 17th ever world championship. These events are where entire legacies are built. Besides that, these 2 events have not a lot in common, except for their ability to create a fan experience that:
🍿 Is unmissable
📅 Is a bucket list, once in a lifetime experience
📺 Creates FOMO
Let’s break it down:
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀, bound by tradition, is held every year at the same golf course, with the same classic theme song and the time-honored Champions Dinner tradition. It's a mobile phone-free event, broadcast through a rolling handshake agreement with the same network, prioritising elegance and exclusivity. Sponsorship visibility is minimal, with the six official sponsors barely noticeable on the course or broadcast at all, which is such a unique experience.
In contrast, 𝗪𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮 is a fever dream of pop culture and spectacle. Cities bid for the right to host, and each year brings a new theme song from a trending artist like Travis Scott or The Weeknd. The event embraces technology and virality (including celebrity appearences, pop-culture themed entrances and more), evolving from a pay-per-view model to streaming on Peacock and now Netflix. Sponsorship and celebrity integration are front and center, to illustrate this, within just one hour of screen time, I noticed very obvious sponsorship appearances from brands like PRIME (with Logan Paul), Xfinity, Goodyear, Clash of Clans, Fatal Fury, Slim Jim, along with appearances from comedians and musicians alike.
Ultimately, it doesn’t particularly matter how they create the amazing and unique fan experiences, it just matters that they did. And where does such success all come from? Knowing your fan 𝗗𝗘𝗘𝗣𝗟𝗬 and catering for them, whether it's the tradition and class of The Masters, or the Entertainment Spectacle of Wrestlemania.
Food for thought.