Buoyed by the marketing dollars of brands looking to draft off the power of the Olympic movement, US Olympians have been able to make a career out of simply being themselves. The connection between brands and athletes delivers results on both sides of the proposition - but it has traditionally been an arduous process for marketers to find all but the most well-known athletes to represent their brands.

Zaileen Janmohamed is at the forefront of fixing all that via the USOPC's new technology initiative knows as AMP - the Athlete Marketing Platform. In this podcast we discuss this exciting opportunity for more US Olympians to get the financial support they need while training and after their competitive career ends.

Despite exponential growth over the past 15 years, socio-economic conditions have seen the sport of lacrosse struggle to break through to the higher levels of participation enjoyed by many of America's more pervasive field sports. Similarly, finding sponsors and advertisers to hop on board the lax train has not been an easy task for the sport's champions. We reached out to Steve Stenersen, CEO of US Lacrosse to address these issues. His insights on where the game is today and what his group is doing in concert with the entire lacrosse community make for an interesting listen.

The critical mass represented by youth soccer players represents the biggest opportunity for brands to reach the millions of players, parents, coaches and organizations dedicated to developing the next iteration of The Beautiful Game in this country. I managed to wrangle Skip Gilbert, CEO of USYS, to talk about how those kids are engaged with the sport, how youth sports in general needs to change, and how brands can make the most of an affiliation with the leading soccer organization in the USA.