The Attention Economy
Nearly two decades across sport, media and technology, now leading sports and media partnerships internationally at Snap and making the case for fandom built young.
"If there's no hype, you're not doing anything differently"
Kahlen Macaulay is Head of Sports and Media Partnerships, International at Snap, where he helps rights holders, teams, athletes, broadcasters and media brands reach younger audiences on Snapchat. He is known for working at the intersection of sport, media and technology, and for arguing that sport now competes in an attention economy.
Macaulay grew up in Vienna and Geneva with ambitions to work for the United Nations. After graduating and a spell in a job he describes as soulless, he reset his career around a lifelong love of sport, starting in an entry-level sales role at Talksport selling airtime to direct advertisers, which led him into sponsorship. He moved into media at ESPN on its digital sales teams, then joined the startup Pulse Live, a digital service provider building websites and apps for the sports industry including, by his account, the Premier League and World Rugby.
He went on to lead the digital partnerships function at the International Olympic Committee, where he ran what he calls a flame to flame strategy to build always-on interest around the Olympics and its move towards a direct-to-consumer product. Macaulay joined Snap nearly seven years ago to lead sports and media partnerships internationally, a role in which he argues that leagues and rights holders must think like media organisations, build fandom early and use tools such as augmented reality to make sport more relevant to younger fans.
We should never underestimate the power of fun in terms of creating value
"The more uncomfortable I feel, the more I want to say yes."
Macaulay credits much of his career to taking risks before he felt ready. He invokes Richard Branson's advice to say yes and figure out how to do it afterwards, and treats discomfort as a signal to lean in rather than retreat. It is a philosophy he pairs with curiosity and a willingness to ask more experienced people for help.
"They're more interested in the intersection of sports with fashion, culture, and music"
For Macaulay, younger fans do not experience sport in isolation. They engage with it where it overlaps fashion, music and food, which is why Snap sends non-sports creators to events and treats the World Cup as a cultural festival. He argues that organisations willing to broaden their positioning unlock a huge amplifier effect.
"We believe that's the next big shift in media"
Macaulay points to more than a decade of investment and 350 million daily AR users on Snapchat as evidence the behaviour is already there. He frames augmented reality, digital computing overlaid on the physical world, as the next big change in how sport is consumed, from stadium cameras to try-on lenses. His caution is that value, not gimmickry, is what makes it work.
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