Does a brand need a link to the sport it sponsors?

A few days ago, snowboarder Marion Haerty, four-time freeride world champion, published a text that spread widely: in it, she describes receiving, then turning down, what she calls the biggest contract of her career. The partner? OnlyFans.

The story is interesting on two counts. On the athlete's side, it raises a question rarely told this honestly: how do you say no to a financially enormous offer? On the brand's side, it raises an equally interesting question: why would a platform with no connection whatsoever to outdoor sport try to sponsor a snowboarding champion?

"The biggest contract of my career"

In her text, Marion Haerty explains that the proposal didn't necessarily require her to produce adult content. The idea, she specifies, was "to use the platform differently, to talk about sport, mountains, training, adventure, and show more of the behind-the-scenes of [her] life as an athlete". On paper, she writes, she could have said yes.

She said no. And she's careful to specify that this choice is "absolutely not a criticism of the athletes, creators or women who decide to join this platform". Her refusal, she says, "simply speaks to who [she is], to [her] limits, and to what [she feels] aligned with".

Why the association is scary, even when the project is legitimate

This might be the most revealing passage for anyone interested in brand communication. Marion Haerty explains that even though "OnlyFans isn't just about adult content", she knew the association would probably be made immediately by her audience. She describes wondering "how [she] would handle the comments, the shortcuts, the jokes or the attacks", and whether she would have to "constantly explain" what she was actually doing on the platform.

After nearly twenty years building a career around snowboarding, mountains and performance, she explains she didn't want to deliberately create a situation that risked weakening that image.

"A partnership shouldn't just be a question of money. It involves our image, our values, sometimes our mental health, and above all the direction we want to give our career."

The turning point

Marion Haerty also recounts a personal moment that, in her words, "definitely tipped the scale": a teenage girl close to her, struggling at school, once mentioned the idea of starting on OnlyFans as a possibility for her future. She says she doesn't judge the women who choose that path, but she did ask herself what message she, with her own visibility, wanted to send to the young girls who follow her: that a body can be powerful before it's looked at, and that there are "countless different ways to build a life".

And on the brand's side?

This refusal is revealing about the athlete. But it's just as revealing about the brand's strategy. Why would OnlyFans go after a snowboarding champion instead of sticking to its historical core audience?

The answer comes down to one word: diversification. For several years, OnlyFans has been actively working to reposition its image, beyond adult content, as a personal branding tool for any kind of creator. Non-adult creators are said to now make up nearly 30% of the platform's user base, which has notably struck partnerships with DAZN and the Professional Fighters League to gain a foothold in sport and entertainment.

Recruiting a respected, recognized outdoor athlete like Marion Haerty would therefore have had real strategic value for OnlyFans: associating the brand with performance, with mountains, with a wholesome image, rather than its original reputation. The problem is that this benefit for the brand becomes exactly the risk for the athlete: she's the one lending her credibility, and she's the one who would bear the consequences if the association didn't convince her audience.

What it says about sports sponsoring

This touches on a central concept in sponsoring: congruence, meaning the perceived degree of fit between a brand and what it sponsors. As already discussed in the article on sports sponsoring, drawing on a meta-analysis published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, a better fit between a brand and the event or person it sponsors generates more positive reactions from the public. And the research goes further: even a strong fit may not be enough if the activation lacks authenticity, with a real risk of confusion or rejection.

The Marion Haerty x OnlyFans case is almost a life-size thought experiment on this idea. The functional fit genuinely existed: talking about sport, mountains, training. But the image fit was much more fragile, and that's exactly what tipped the scale.

"Saying no can also be part of a career"

That's the sentence Marion Haerty closes her text with. She explains she long believed, as an athlete, that you had to seize every opportunity. "Today, I think almost the opposite," she writes. "Building a career obviously means knowing how to say yes. But it also means learning to say no to certain opportunities, even when they're financially attractive, when they don't fully match the direction you want to take."

She closes the door without slamming it, though: "OnlyFans will be a perfect fit for some people's projects. And that's great. It simply wasn't mine." She says she'd rather keep building her world around what has always driven her: "snowboarding, mountains, adventure, performance, passing it on, and freedom."

"Saying no can also be part of a career."

Personal takeaway

What I take away from this story is that it flips the usual way we look at sports sponsoring. We often talk about brands' responsibility in choosing their ambassadors. Here, it's the athlete who exercised that exact same vigilance, on herself, before the brand even had to. A partnership, whatever its amount, remains a communication choice. And sometimes, the best communication choice is to say no.