Genie Bouchard — The Social Media Queen of Tennis
From the tennis court to the newsfeed, Canadian Tennis Sweetheart Eugenie Bouchard has gained attention worldwide for her athletic skills and good looks.
The 2014 Wimbledon finalist, burst onto the WTA tour scene in 2013 making a name for herself at just 19-years-old. A ferocious competitor, Genie climbed her way up the female WTA rankings to a career-high №5 in 2014. At the peak of her career thus far, Genie was a regular in quarter and semifinal rounds at prestigious tournaments. But like many great athletes, her play started to fall as she gained more and more attention, continuously knocking her back down the rankings.
As she struggled to get through the beginning of the 2015 tour, the Canadian found her self on North American land at the 2015 US Open. What started as a good tournament for the star, ended in a freak accident in which Genie slipped and fell hitting her head in the locker room post-match, giving her a concussion. This incident would result in a lawsuit against the United States Tennis Association and gain her attention across sport media news site. The concussion would keep her out of a few tournaments, but her game on the court would never be quite the same.
Skip ahead to present day, Genie continues to struggle on the court, currently sitting №117 in the WTA singles ranking. Fans of the athlete have all but given up on the hope that she can make a triumphant comeback in the tennis scene. So far this year, Genie has already dropped 6 of her 10 matches, struggling to make it past the second round of any tournament. But, while her play on the court diminishes, her play in the social media scene strives.
In the five years that she’s been in the spotlight, the 24-year-old has gained over 1.7M followers on both Instagram and Twitter while typically posting two to three times a week. Her blonde-hair and blue-eyed good looks have captured the attention of both tennis fans and regular people. Not only does she get the attention from sport media sites for her struggling game and lawsuit against the USTA, but she garners the attention of people for her model-like features.
Not only does Genie earn prize money through competition, she also has hundreds of thousands of revenue coming in from sponsorships. While her poor play has impacted her sport sponsorships, with major sponsors Aviva and Usana vowing out of resigning Genie at the beginning of 2018, she is still sponsored by Coca-Cola and Nike who gain more attention from her popularity on social media.
While scrolling through Genie’s Instagram feed, a few things stand out.
- She LOVES selfies and posting pictures of herself.
- She promotes her play on the court through videos of her working out and action shots from matches.
- She is willing to occassionally post unattractive photos of herself for millions of people to see.
Like many other famous female Instagram accounts, Genie promotes herself above all else. She knows that people are following her because she is pretty and that they want to follow her to see her more. By doing this she builds her personal brands and is able to use it as leverage when negotating sponsorships with big name companies.
Though Genie has become an influencer on Instagram with her millions of followers, her Twitter account is just as popular for a variety of reasons. Perhaps one of Genie’s most influential social media moments was in February of 2017 during Super Bowl LI when she made a bet with a fan through Twitter.
As the Atlanta Falcons took a 28–3 lead over the New England Patriots in the third quarter, Genie sent out a tweet stating “I knew Atlanta would win btw.” As any sports fan and believer would, twitter user John Goehrke, a.k.a @punslayintwood replied back “if patriots win we go on a date?” Like any regular person would, John didn’t expect any reply from the famous athlete, he simply tweeted it out with the thought of “what if” in mind.
But just 3 minutes after sending the tweet, Goehrke got the most surprising response of his life. Bouchard replied back to his bet, quote tweeting his reply with one word… Sure.
At the time it seemed improbable that the Patriots would come back from such a large deficit, but as time ran down in the game the Patriots began their late game comeback ultimately defeat the Falcons 34–28 in overtime. In one of the most exciting modern-day Super Bowls, Bouchard was left speechless.
This sparked a flurry of attention over all forms of social media, with everyone having some say on the bet. While Twitter was already going crazy with the result of the game, a small chunk of attention was directed towards Bouchard and her absurd bet with the random fan. Not only did she become a moment on Twitter, but her name appeared in news headlines across the continent with screenshots of the Twitter exchange included. Though Genie probably didn’t think the tweet would mean anything with the Falcons holding such a commanding lead, one simple word ended up bring a new boatload of positive attention towards the player who was struggling for attention due to her play on the court.
Though many doubted Bouchard’s willingness to keep her word, just 10 days after the bet was made, she treated the fan to a courtside date at a Brooklyn Nets game in New York. Of course this drew attention back to Bouchard as she posted various pictures and videos over Twitter and Instagram once again grabbing the attention of fans and sport media outlets across North America.
By this time, the hashtag #superbowltwitterdate had emerged allowing users to follow the date and interactions between the two through this hashtag.
In fairy tail’s, the magic of the day ends when the clock strikes midnight. While this happens in the majority of Disney princess movies, this was not the case for Genie and John.
The fairy tail continued with a second date hangout between the two almost 11 months after the game. Once again, Genie shared a picture over Twitter of the two lounging out on Bouchard’s couch. The tweet gained over 10.5K favourites and had over 1600 replies.
You thought the story was done there? NOPE. Prior to Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis, Minnesota NFL CANADA tweeted out to the two asking if they’d want to come to the big game. Without hesitation they both responded yes, beginning the third part of the two’s saga.
The two met up in Minneapolis, spending the weekend together enjoying the festivities. The two participated in a live Q&A on NFL Canada’s account, where the tennis star was once again introduced and presented to a new community. Though the weekend ended with another Patriots loss, Genie once again gained media’s attention by not really doing all that much.
With every tweet sent out about the two “lovebirds,” Bouchard draws more attention to herself, in turn increasing her online following. Because of this she finds herself in more and more filter bubbles over various social media sites. This story that began through social media has gained attention world wide as one of the most bizarre ways for a athlete and fan to be brought together. The attention that Genie has gained from a simple tweet has done wonders for her personal brand as it brought an influx of followers and tweets directed at her. The story also goes a long way in showing how large of an impact social media has now a days. One simple tweet that had just 32 characters has changed a young mans life in whichever way you want to look at it.
On top of the Twitter date, Bouchard has found other ways to shift attention to herself. For two year now, she has been featured and modelled in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Being the beautiful girl that she is and posing in such attractive “clothing,” her pictures are a hit over social media. On one post, Genie racked up her most like ever with just under 250 000 on one of her swimsuit pictures. With this many likes, Bouchard pops up on various users Instagram explore pages and following pages, expanding her reach.
With the light on Genie, other members of her family have also been able to shine. Genie’s fraternal (but just as hot) twin sister, Beatrice, has racked up over 257K followers on Instagram and an average receives around 10 000 likes per photo, while the younger Bouchard sister, Charlotte currently has 76K Instagram followers. The sister’s cousin Mimi Bouchard is also just as famous with 161K followers. Basically, if you have the hot Bouchard genes, people want to follow you.
It’s been said that health and fitness is one of the most popular communities online. Genie Bouchard has successfully cemented herself among the elite profiles that celebrate and encourage fitness. While she does so differently than users like Kayla Itsines and Tammy Hebrew, Genie has successfully used her looks and athletic ability to grow her following and build her personal brands. Because of her large following, Genie is able to gain money through sponsorships and appearance, increasing her success. Genie Bouchard is the true Social Media Queen of Tennis and will continue to be for years to come.
