The game has changed quickly.

It was the summer of 2018, days before France kicked off their World Cup-winning campaign that Antoine Griezmann laid out his plans for the big reveal.

‘The Decision’, he teased, would come at the end of a half-hour documentary broadcast on Spanish TV. Barcelona thought they had him, as did most fans when Gerard Pique – whose company produced the show – tweeted a popcorn emoji.

At the end of the documentary, however, Griezmann stood in front of the Metropolitano and revealed he was staying at Atletico Madrid in one of two different endings reportedly filmed to keep the decision secret.

The self-confessed NBA fanatic – inspired by LeBron James’ live show by the same name in 2010, when the basketball star joined the Miami Heat – was attempting to own his narrative. Instead he, and Pique, caught some criticism.

Kyle says that “self-commercialisation” did not have the impact it would have done now if it was Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappe.

Griezmann was almost before his time. Many prominent players now share regular updates from their lives on their own YouTube channels – from Haaland, to Ronaldo, Jude Bellingham and Lionesses’ star Ella Toone.

“Players are becoming their own distribution levers, with some in particular taking a driving seat in terms of ‘how I project myself onto the world’ and building their own channels and audience,” explains Kyle.

Now, in many cases, the players do own the narrative and fans are increasingly able to invest in their journeys, which are more accessible than ever.

“Players are far more culturally symbolic than they used to be,” says Kirkham. “It is not that players don’t do endorsements now, but they know they have to resonate with fans, so fans can really latch on to them and get behind them.

“Look at what Marcus Rashford did during Covid in terms of changing actual legislation.

“Young fans want to know players stand for something more – that gives them more chance to follow and pursue them, find a deeper connection with them.

“They look for stuff that is aligned to them, who they are, their causes and where they’re from. I think we will increasingly see that.”

The former moderator of the r/LivestreamFail subreddit, Bryan “Stale2000,” also known as “Tarrot_Card,” has revealed that his accounts have been permanently banned from Reddit and that he was escorted out of a moderator event organized at Reddit’s headquarters. On August 14, 2026, Stale2000 posted a two-minute-56-second video with the caption “Reddit Banned me For Attending an Event!”

In it, Stale2000 detailed an event organized by Reddit for the platform’s moderators. He stated that he attended the event as a plus one and “showed up as himself with a hat” because he did not want other Reddit mods to “swarm or bother” him:

“Hey, it’s a mod event, I’m a moderator of other subreddits, why not just, like, shoot my shot? See if I can stop by. So, I was on the waitlist for the event, and the event even allowed plus ones. So, I got on the event waitlist, and I found somebody else was going to the event over the internet, and then I just showed up as myself with a hat, mostly so, like, the bunch of other mods don’t swarm me or bother me. So, I went inside, said I was a plus one of this other guy, and gave the username. And the person at the sign in looked at me a little funny and told me to sit down in the chair in the lobby and wait for somebody to bring me up.”

Stale2000 then stated that a security guard told him to leave the premises because he “was not authorized” to attend the event:

“5 minutes later, a security guard walked up to me and asked me very nicely to step outside, which I politely did. And then he said to me that I am not authorized to be at the event, and asked me to leave, else they would have to call the police. I just said okay and then briskly walked away and went to a different tech event that I was actually planning on going to later.”

Furthermore, Bryan disclosed that all of his Reddit accounts had been permanently banned:

“And then I wake up this morning and see that all of my accounts have been permanently banned for a moderator code of conduct violation. A bit annoying, but whatever.”

Stale2000 claims Reddit banned his accounts for a “rule he did not break”

In the same video posted on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform, Stale2000 stated that Reddit “went too far” by banning his accounts for a “rule he did not break.”

The former Twitch employee elaborated:

“You know, banning my Reddit account for a rule I did not break, that is going too far, and I will be submitting a strongly-worded complaint as to this travesty in my fan appeal. You just wait!”

Stale2000 made headlines in January 2026 when he claimed that he could “destroy” YouTube and Twitch star Charles “MoistCr1TiKaL.”