SailGP's Chief Hype Officer: DJ Khaled

SailGP

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The 7th Annual Awards

Nominee ✨

• Most Creative Partnership with an Athlete or Influencer

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ABOUT THIS ENTRY

SailGP, the most exciting racing on water, together with Roc Nation Sports International, partnered with Grammy-Award winning artist DJ Khaled to be the global championship’s Chief Hype Officer for the 2025 season. DJ Khaled dove into the adrenaline rush of SailGP through a digital-first media partnership, driving awareness for the growing global racing championship and tapping into younger, mainstream audiences.

How does this represent "Excellence in Engagement"?

This work set a new benchmark for how emerging sports properties can engage fans by integrating culture, not borrowing from it. By giving DJ Khaled a real role – Chief Hype Officer – and real access, SailGP moved beyond influencer marketing into true co-creation. Fans weren’t just watching content; they were experiencing the sport through a trusted cultural voice. The campaign demonstrated how live sport, celebrity, and social storytelling can intersect to create moments that travel far beyond the venue. It redefined sailing’s engagement model, proving that high-performance sport can be thrilling, entertaining, and culturally relevant. This approach inspires the industry to think differently about fandom, prioritizing emotion, access, and personality to build lasting connections with new audiences.

Objective

This partnership was created to accelerate SailGP’s relevance with younger and more mainstream audiences in the U.S. by reframing elite sailing as culture-forward, entertainment-driven, and accessible. SailGP set out to move beyond traditional sports marketing by embedding the championship within music, celebrity, and social storytelling, without compromising competitive credibility. DJ Khaled, as the league’s first Chief Hype Officer, was chosen to act as a cultural bridge: someone with global reach, authenticity, and the ability to translate the adrenaline of SailGP to fans who may never have engaged with the sport before. The objective was not only awareness, but perception change, positioning SailGP as “the most exciting racing on water” and a live event worth showing up for, sharing, and talking about in the cultural zeitgeist. 

Strategy & Execution

The campaign was designed for the modern sports fan – digital-first, personality-led, and optimized for shareability. Rather than traditional endorsement, DJ Khaled was fully integrated into the SailGP experience, from becoming Chief Hype Officer to physically driving an F50 catamaran during a Sixth Sailor experience on the Hudson River in New York City. Content was captured natively for social platforms, leveraging Khaled’s signature voice, humor, and energy to translate technical racing into visceral excitement. The partnership spanned major U.S. Sail Grand Prix events, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, ensuring geographic relevance and sustained momentum. Collaboration with Roc Nation Sports International ensured cultural credibility and amplification beyond sports audiences. The execution prioritized authenticity, spectacle, and access, bringing fans closer to athletes, the technology, and moments in ways that felt organic, unscripted, and made for modern consumption. DJ Khaled’s content was also integrated into broadcasts that hit more than 215 million viewers around the world and he served as an ambassador for the sport in various media outlets, including on ESPN’s SportsCenter and for CBS Sports.

Organizations

• SailGP
  Roc Nation Sports

Links

•   Website

Featured

• DJ Khaled 

Credits

Melissa Lawton
Chief Content Officer
SailGP

Stuart Lieberman
Head of Communications, Americas
SailGP

Abner Aceves
Director of Content
SailGP

Jillian Koravos
Social Media Lead
SailGP

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