Every serious athlete needs a central hub they actually own. A website. One piece of internet real estate you control. Nobody can take it from you. Nobody can throttle it because an algorithm changed its mind this week.
We’ve worked with enough athletes over the years to spot the pattern. Cael Sanderson. Jordan Burroughs. Helen Maroulis. Thomas Gilman. Bo Nickal. Zain Retherford. Jason Nolf. The ones who grow their brand past the mat, past the match, past the rankings, all have one thing in common: they’ve diversified. They’re winning on social, and they own a website. The ones who only do one? They’re leaving a huge piece of their brand on the table.
Let me tell you why that matters, and what a good athlete website actually looks like in 2026.
Diversify Your Platforms
Social media is one of the most powerful brand-building tools in history. Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, Facebook, these are platforms that can take an unknown kid out of a small-town wrestling room and turn them into a recognizable brand in under a year. We use them every single day at Basch Solutions. We build content strategy around them for every athlete and business we work with. They work. They drive revenue. They build audiences at a pace nothing else on earth can match. Nobody reading this should stop using them. If anything, you should be doing more.
But here’s the catch. Every one of those platforms is rented land. You do not own your TikTok audience. TikTok does. You do not own your Instagram reach. Meta does. Algorithms shift. Policies change. Features get ripped out. Platforms rise and fall. That’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s just how the internet works. Every smart business, every smart athlete, diversifies. They post on Instagram and they own a website. They run TikTok and they collect email addresses. They build on rented land and they build on land they actually own.
A website is not a replacement for social media. It’s the hub that social media points to. Your Instagram link in bio points to your site. Your TikTok description points to your site. Your press page is what a journalist finds when they Google you after watching a viral clip. Your camps page is what a parent finds when a coach recommends you. Social is the top of the funnel. Your website is where it converts.
If you’re serious about your brand, you need both. Not one. Both.
Three Wrestlers Doing It Right
I want to show you three actual examples, because this is not theoretical. These guys are already doing what I’m telling you to do. And they’re doing it while absolutely crushing it on social, too.
Bo Nickal
Bo Nickal is not just one of the best wrestlers this country has ever produced. He’s a UFC middleweight. Three-time NCAA Champion. Hodge Trophy winner. And his website is built like a pro fight promoter’s press kit.
The nav reads: Next Fight, About, Background, Shop, Media & Press, Contact. That’s it. Six sections, and every single one is doing a job. His hero screams his name and shows his record, 8-1. Below the fold you see a career milestone strip: Pro MMA, 3x NCAA Champ, Hodge Trophy ’19, UFC Freedom 250, The White House, Summer 2026.
A journalist lands here looking for his bio? Two clicks. A brand looking for a sponsorship fit? One click. A fan wanting merch? One click. That’s not an accident. That’s a website doing its job.
Josh Barr
Josh Barr is a Penn State wrestler, and honestly, his site is the model I’d hand to any college wrestler who asked me what to build. The nav reads: About, Media, Camps, Partner, Shop Merch, Instagram. Six items. Six revenue or relationship streams.
Want to book Josh for a camp this summer? There’s a page. Want to partner with him on a brand deal under NIL? There’s a page. Want his merch? There’s a page. Every stream a college wrestler should be monetizing has a front door on this site.
This is what I’ve been telling college wrestlers for years. You don’t need a ten-page monster with motion graphics. You need six pages that solve six real business problems.
Jordan Burroughs
Jordan Burroughs is the gold standard. Olympic gold medalist. Four-time World Champion. The most decorated freestyle wrestler in American history. If you’re going to study one athlete website, study his.
His site opens with a bold full-bleed shot of JB holding the American flag with his name stamped across it in massive type. A custom crown logo in the top left. Before you have even scrolled, you know exactly who this is and what he stands for.
Here’s a story I’ve told a hundred times. A few years back, Jordan announced his move to the Penn RTC. He didn’t give the scoop to Flo. He didn’t give it to Track. He posted it on his own blog. His social channels then pointed everyone back to it. That’s the power of owning your platform: you control the story, you control the timing, you control who gets the traffic first. The news went everywhere anyway, because the news was Jordan Burroughs. But it happened on his turf, and social helped amplify it.
It Does Not Have To Be Complicated
I want to make one thing very clear. You do not need a massive website to start.
A one-pager works. A clean hero with your name, a short bio, a few career highlights, a photo gallery, a contact email, and a button to wherever you already sell camps or merch. That’s it. That’s enough. You can launch it in weeks, not months.
What matters is that it exists. That it’s yours. That when a coach at a tournament Googles your name, or a brand rep runs your name through Perplexity, or a parent looking for summer camps types you into a search bar, something professional comes up. Not an abandoned Wix template. Not your freshman-year AAU profile. Something that looks like it belongs to a serious athlete.
As your career grows, the site grows with you. Start with a one-pager. Add a camps page when you’re running camps. Add a partnerships page when NIL deals start coming in. Add a blog when you’ve got something to say. Add a shop when the apparel drops. The site graduates with you.
Own Your Domain Today
Go to GoDaddy or wherever and buy your name. Firstnamelastname.com. Yourhandle.com. Whatever makes sense. It’s eleven bucks a year. Do it before you win a gold medal, not after, because if you wait until after, a domain squatter is going to park on it and try to sell it back to you for five grand.
This is the single cheapest, fastest thing you can do today to protect your future brand. Twelve bucks. Five minutes. Do it tonight.
The ROI Is Real
Every athlete we’ve built a site for has seen the same thing happen: inquiries start showing up that never would have existed without the site. Camp bookings from kids three states away. A brand that wants to send free product. A podcast producer who found the press page. A high school coach who wants to book an appearance.
Social does the heavy lifting of awareness and reach. Nobody grows an audience faster than Instagram or TikTok can grow it for you. But when the brand rep, the journalist, the camp parent, or the podcast producer actually decides to pull the trigger, they end up on your website. That’s where the real conversations happen. That’s where your social audience converts into real relationships and real revenue.
Your website is the press kit, the storefront, the booking desk, and the brand statement in one place. For the cost of a dinner out per month, it works twenty-four hours a day in every market on earth.
Ready?
You are your brand. You own your story. And the platforms you rent today are going to look very different five years from now. The only thing that stays yours is what you actually own.
Keep posting on social. Keep growing that audience. But stack a website on top of it. Start with a one-pager. Build the hub. Own the brand.
If you’re an athlete, a wrestler, a fighter, a coach, or a parent helping a young athlete build out their platform, we build these sites every day at Basch Solutions. Hit our athlete websites page to see examples and start a conversation, or shoot me a DM on Twitter @JustinJBasch.
