# Wildlife Diversity in Global Team Sport Branding

U. Arbieu ID 1,*, C. Bellard ID 1, C.J.A. Bradshaw ID 2,3, R. Correia ID 4,5,6, P. Courtois ID 7, E. Di Minin ID 5,6,8, I. Jarić ID 1,9, J.R. Murfree ID 10, M. Orr ID 11, S. Roturier ID 1, M. Sartore-Baldwin ID 12, D. Veríssimo ID 13 and F. Courchamp ID 1

## Abstract

Many sport organizations worldwide have capitalized on wildlife iconography to develop their brand. Given the ongoing global biodiversity crisis and the importance of sport in modern societies, representations of wildlife in the sport industry offer enormous potential for shifting social norms, raising funds and promoting biodiversity conservation initiatives within the industry itself. We collected data on professional teams that use wild animals either in their name, logo, or supporters' nicknames across 50 countries and across 10 team sports. We identified 727 sport organizations using wildlife iconography or nicknames. Mammals and birds are the most represented classes, and lions (Panthera leo), tigers (Panthera tigris), and grey wolves (Canis lupus) are the most frequently selected species. Threatened species and species with a declining population trend are more represented than other species, with differences across regions. This is a critical first step toward integrating biodiversity conservation in the sustainability agenda of sport organizations.

**Keywords:** biodiversity, branding, connection to nature, conservation flagships, sport, team identification, threatened species, conservation marketing

<footnote n="1">¹Université Paris-Saclay, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, AgroParisTech, Ecologie Société Evolution, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. ²Global Ecology | Partuyarta Ngadluku Wardli Kuu, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. ³Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures, Cairns, Australia. ⁴Biodiversity Unit, University Hill, University of Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland. ⁵Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science, Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. ⁷Centre for Environmental Economics—Montpellier, Université de Montpellier, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France. ⁸Centre for Sustainability Transitions, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa. ⁹Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic. ¹⁰Department of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. ¹¹Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ¹²Department of Recreation Sciences, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. ¹³Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.</footnote>

<footnote>*Corresponding author: 12 route 128, IDEEV, Université Paris-Saclay, 91190, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. E-mail: ugo.arbieu@universite-paris-saclay.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹Ugo Arbieu is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Ecologie Systématique Evolution, in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. His research interests include the human dimensions of wildlife conservation and sport ecology. Céline Bellard is a CNRS researcher affiliated with the Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Ecologie Systématique Evolution, in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. Her research interests include the impacts of global change on biodiversity and macroecology. Corey J. A. Bradshaw is a professor affiliated with the Global Ecology Laboratory, Partuyarta Ngadluku Wardli Kuu, at the College of Science and Engineering, at Flinders University, in Adelaide, South Australia, and with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. His research interests revolve around global change ecology. Ricardo R. Correia is an assistant professor affiliated with the Biodiversity Unit at the University of Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland, with the Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science, in the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland, and with the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science at the University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. His research interests include biodiversity conservation, sustainability and digital methods. Pierre Courtois is a director of researcher affiliated with the Centre for Environmental Economics at the University of Montpellier, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France. His research interests include environmental economy and biological invasions. Enrico Di Minin is a professor affiliated with the Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science in the Department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland, with the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science at the University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland, and with the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa. His research interests include biodiversity conservation, illegal wildlife trade and digital methods. Ivan Jarić is a junior professor affiliated with the Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Ecologie Systématique Evolution, in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, and with the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Hydrobiology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic. His research interests include species extinction risk assessments, biological invasions and conservation social sciences. Jessica R. Murfree is an assistant professor affiliated with the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. Her research interests include sport ecology and climate change. Madeleine Orr is an assistant professor affiliated with the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her research interests include sport ecology and sociology and the human dimensions of climate change. Samuel Roturier is a lecturer affiliated with the with the Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Ecologie Société Evolution, in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. His research interests include human-nature interactions and social-ecological systems.</footnote>

<footnote>Melanie Sartore-Baldwin is a professor affiliated with the Department of Recreation Sciences at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. Her research interests include human-animal interaction within sport and physical activity. Diogo Veríssimo is a researcher affiliated with the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. His research interests include social marketing and community-based conservation. Franck Courchamp is a senior researcher affiliated with the Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Ecologie Systématique Evolution, in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. His research interests include biodiversity conservation and biological invasions.</footnote>
Wildlife iconography has long been used in art and folklore, and, more recently, in advertising and marketing (Braczkowski et al. 2021). Such iconography signals a connection between people and nature and provides a shared sense of place, purpose, belonging, or rootedness associated with the living world (Rüdisser et al. 2019, Kronenberg and Bocian 2022). Animal imagery has been widely used to build national identities (Lawson 2019, Newbery et al. 2024), featured on flags and coins (Hammerschlag and Gallagher 2017, Newbery et al. 2024), in the branding of fashion and luxury goods (Cervellon 2013, Hooykaas et al. 2022), and in corporate communication (Kronenberg and Bocian 2022). The world of sport is no exception. However, the use of wildlife iconography in the sport industry is poorly documented, with little known about the diversity of wildlife represented in team brands, or how this could be leveraged for wildlife conservation.

Team sport organizations play a role in fostering social identity and cohesion (Jacobson 2003), and serve as powerful vectors for creating a sense of belonging. Team identification—defined as a “fan’s psychological connection to a team” (Wann et al. 2001)—can develop early in life, remain relatively stable over time, and contribute to fans’ loyalty (Kolyperas et al. 2019), sense of self and community (Heere and James 2007, Slater et al. 2014), as well as to individual development (Bruner et al. 2017) and behavior (Rees et al. 2015). To strengthen and capitalize on this bond, sport organizations have developed brands composed of names, visual symbols, and emblems designed to resonate emotionally with fans (Keller 1993, Funk and James 2006) and to consolidate a unique positioning among competitors (Keller and Lehmann 2006). Among these emblems, wild animal names and representations are commonly used, embedding animals into the core of team identity and fan attachment (Sartore-Baldwin and McCullough 2019, Arbieu et al. 2025). This emotional connection to wildlife through sport branding may offer a promising yet underexplored avenue to foster conservation intentions (Arbieu et al. 2025). Recognizing this potential is important given that to date, biodiversity issues remain largely overlooked within the sport industry (Orr et al. 2022).

Wild animal symbols are not just aesthetically appealing, they are selected because fans and customers are familiar with the species (Díaz-Restrepo et al. 2021). Such symbols can convey particular characteristics and values that can be transferred to the teams they represent, thereby creating a strong connection with fans and consumers (Sartore-Baldwin and McCullough 2019). The dual process of *zoomorphism* (attributing animal traits to nonanimal entities; Brown and Ponsonby-McCabe 2014) and *anthropomorphism* (attributing human characteristics to nonhuman entities; Root-Bernstein et al. 2013) allows sport teams to embody characteristics such as strength, agility, and resistance, while appealing to fans and building a cohesive group identity (Brown and Ponsonby-McCabe 2014). However, a comprehensive analysis of wildlife representation across different team sport organizations, and across cultures and genders, is lacking, leaving a large gap in understanding the cultural importance of these symbols and the diversity of their use (DeSantis 2018, Rüdisser et al. 2019).

Many of the species used in marketing have declining populations in the wild and might be threatened with extinction (Good et al. 2017, Courchamp et al. 2018). As such, these culturally important species used as sport emblems have the potential to act as flagship species (i.e., species that have the potential to generate public interest and mobilize large audiences who might otherwise not be concerned to support conservation initiatives; Good et al. 2017, Ladle et al. 2023). In the present article, we present a systematic assessment of wild animal taxa represented in professional

team sport organizations to highlight existing and potential synergies between biodiversity conservation and sport branding in the current context of global biodiversity loss. We focused on animal taxa found in a team name, in a logo, or used as a nickname for the community of fans (hereafter termed *wildlife teams* for simplicity), across the 10 highest-income countries in five main regions (i.e., Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceania) and across 10 team sports, to ensure we included the sport organizations with the greatest potential (human and financial) resources (Miller et al. 2002, Waldron et al. 2013). Our aims were to answer three fundamental questions: What is the diversity of wild animals represented in team sport brands? What is the conservation status (i.e., threatened versus nonthreatened) and population trend (i.e., increasing, decreasing, or stable) of the corresponding species? (How does the diversity of animal representations vary across regions, sports, and genders?)

## Differences in taxonomic representation in team sports

Wildlife emblems in sport organizations represent a diversity of taxonomic groups, with differences across taxa, sports, and cultural contexts (box 1, supplemental methods S1). Charismatic mammals (especially large carnivores) and birds (particularly birds of prey) were the most prominent in sport iconography, which supports previous findings concerning their cultural importance (Albert et al. 2018, Courchamp et al. 2018, Rüdisser et al. 2019, Ladle et al. 2023). These findings also generally agree with taxonomic biases in scientific interest toward charismatic species (Donaldson et al. 2017), and the biases in conservation funding that is mostly directed toward vertebrates (Guénard et al. 2025). Nevertheless, there was high overall diversity of wildlife representations, with 161 distinct taxa identified across 727 professional team sport organizations (box 1). Interestingly, the taxonomic richness found in sport emblems was not related to actual country-specific animal richness (supplemental table S2). Similar to previous studies on wildlife iconography in online communication (Mammola et al. 2023b), there were disparities in taxonomic representations (supplemental methods S1), with some taxa easily identifiable to species, whereas we could only identify others to family, class, or order (Mammola et al. 2023a, 2023b). This reflects potential differences between folk taxonomies and scientific nomenclature (Beaudreau et al. 2011). For instance, bees, wasps, snakes, crabs, or dolphins are always used as generic terms or coarsely represented, which may help improve communication efficiency but may also prevent stronger associations with specific species (Hart and Sumner 2020) and oversimplify the complexity of biodiversity (Mammola et al. 2023a, Leandro and Jay-Robert 2019). There lies an opportunity to increase general knowledge about the great diversity of species hidden behind these coarse taxonomic groups and help shift attitudes and social norms: There are almost 1400 species of bats (Frick et al. 2020), as many species of freshwater crabs (Yeo et al. 2008), and around 20,000 species of bees worldwide (Zattara and Aizen 2021).

## Differences across sports and countries highlight the cultural importance of species

The number of wildlife teams within professional leagues was explained by the number of teams in the league and the sport category (44.6% of the variance explained; supplemental table S3), whereas region explained only an additional 1.6% (table S3). The
<figure><img src="image_1.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Geographical distribution of professional teams using (domestic and wild) animals in either their organization's name, their brand logo or the fans' nicknames. This investigation covers the 10 professional team sport leagues of the 10 highest-income countries (according to their gross domestic product) of each region, for the season 2022-2023 (see methods S1).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.** Histogram of wild taxa identified in professional team sport organizations, grouped into classes (left panel) and the top 15 species (right panel) identified. The complete list of taxa can be found in table S1.</figcaption></figure>

Box 1. Diversity of animal representations in major professional sport leagues.

We identified 230 professional leagues for our 10 focus team sports (i.e., football, American football, rugby league, rugby union, basketball, ice hockey, volleyball, handball, baseball, and cricket) across five regions (i.e., Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania; figure 1). Among them, 197 leagues contained at least one wildlife team (i.e., teams that use a wild animal in either their organization's name, their brand logo, or the fans' nicknames). Overall, we found 727 such wildlife teams (n = 578 for men; n = 149 for women) representing 24.4% of all sport organizations (n = 2970 across the 230 professional leagues). Wildlife teams were represented by 161 distinct taxa identified at different taxonomic levels that spanned 10 classes, 54 orders, 73 families, and 86 species (figure 2, supplemental table S1). Mammals and birds were the most represented classes, and lions (*Panthera leo*), tigers (*Panthera tigris*), grey wolves (*Canis lupus*), leopards (*Panthera pardus*), and brown bears (*Ursus arctos*) were the five most frequently selected species (figure 2). The golden eagle (*Haliaeetus leucocephalus*) was the most frequently represented bird (ranked 11th). However, given the difficulty of identifying eagles to species level, we most often had to pool them at the family level as Accipitridae (table S1).
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.** Biplot showing wildlife diversity in professional team sport across five regions. The size of the dots represents the number of sport organizations with a wildlife emblem in each country; therefore, the relative diversity on the y-axis is the taxonomic richness on the x-axis divided by the number of sport organizations.</figcaption></figure>

differences among sports were driven primarily by volleyball and handball, which both had fewer wildlife teams than football (supplemental figure S1). Handball had the lowest percentage of wildlife teams across sports, and rugby league had the highest percentage (supplemental figure S2). There was no evidence for a difference in the percentage and relative diversity between women's and men's wildlife teams (table S3, supplemental figure S3). Football had the highest taxonomic richness (i.e., absolute number of distinct wild taxa) and lowest relative diversity (i.e., taxonomic richness divided by the number of wildlife teams), whereas American football had the highest relative diversity of wildlife taxa (supplemental figure S4). The selection of wild animals as emblems also depended on the cultural contexts given that we found important differences in taxonomic richness and relative diversity across countries (figure 3). Some countries had a high relative diversity of animal taxa (e.g., Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Fiji), some had a high taxonomic richness (e.g., United States, Japan, United Kingdom), whereas others had few animal representations (e.g., Algeria, Ecuador, Egypt).

Therefore, among the highest-income countries in each of the five regions, cultural specificities in sport practices and wildlife appreciation might play a role in driving the selection of wildlife species as sport organization emblems or fan nicknames, making them culturally important species (Garibaldi and Turner 2004). Five criteria pertaining to the definition of culturally important species (Garibaldi and Turner 2004) are indeed applicable to the sport industry, because these species have a role in narratives, ceremonies, or symbolism; are ubiquitous in the collective cultural consciousness of the team; occupy a unique position in the local culture because they are difficult to replace with other species; are intensively used in different ways to communicate about the organization's brand and values through visual representation, game animations, social media posts, or nonverbal symbology such as tattoos; and are highly represented in the sport culture's language and in vocabulary through nicknames used in the press or in the prosaic lexicon. The last criterion to define culturally important species concerns the provision of opportunities for subsistence (e.g., food, material) and this criterion is not often met. This is
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.** Spatial congruence in wildlife iconography. Left panel: For each country, the number of sport organizations having selected a wildlife species that is present or absent in the country. Right panel: Predicted probability of selecting a local wildlife species in each region, based on a generalized linear mixed-effects model (binomial regression; see supplemental table S4).</figcaption></figure>

because the motivations behind selection of species need not be linked to direct use or consumption, so sport organizations do not always select local wildlife (figure 4). This raises important questions about the possibility and willingness to promote, design, or contribute to significant conservation actions targeting species or groups of species that do not occur in the country of the respective sport organizations.

## Preference for local birds and exotic mammals

In fact, there are differences in terms of spatial congruence (i.e., selection of species as sport emblems that were present in the respective countries) across countries: Countries in Europe or the Americas tend to use representations of exotic wild animals more than countries in Africa or Asia, which are more likely to choose local species (figure 4). Furthermore, we found differences among wildlife classes: Local birds were more likely to be selected within a country, whereas mammals tended to be selected by teams in countries where they do not currently exist (table S4). Nevertheless, we contend that the cultural significance of the wild animal species selected as sport emblems helps create a sense of community, rally a large fanbase, and communicate the organization's values while positioning its brand in the national and global sport market. As such, sport clubs could have a responsibility in preserving the cultural value of the species in question

and contributing to their conservation in the wild (Tavares de Freitas et al. 2019). These contributions could be embedded within their corporate environmental responsibility strategies and could be extended to engage broader communities of stakeholders (e.g., institutional and commercial partners, athletes), reinforcing the social contract that connects them with the team (Arbieu et al. 2025).

## Preference for threatened species and opportunities for biodiversity conservation

There is potential to capitalize on the cultural significance and emotional connection between sport and wildlife to encourage team sport brands to engage in conservation strategies that could both benefit wildlife conservation and strengthen brand equity (Arbieu et al. 2025). Specifically, there are three main drivers that, in addition to cultural, social, and behavioral characteristics of the fans, could be harnessed to enhance their influence and whose importance may vary over time and across team-specific contexts: the status of the species used as a sport emblem, its taxonomic specificity, and the exclusivity of association with that species.

The status of the species, whether in terms of its threat risk or its local cultural importance, is an important factor to consider for such a strategy. Indeed, threatened species were selected more of-
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5.** Distribution of taxonomic classes, conservation status, and population trend of the *n* = 84 taxa identified to species level (left panel) and their representation across the 440 team sport organizations that use these taxa as part of their identity (right panel).</figcaption></figure>

than expected by chance (box 2, figure 5) and at the same time,
wildlife emblems are seen as irreplaceable (Wear et al. 2018) and
deeply embedded in club identity (Schultz and Sheffer 2018). The
conservation status of a species and the engagement of the sport
organization against extinction of its emblem are therefore un-
doubtedly important factors in simultaneously promoting brand
equity, conservation, and fan engagement. The cultural status of
the species, and in particular its local importance, might also be a
strong marketing argument for promoting the firm's brand equity
while supporting conservation (Albert et al. 2018, Courchamp et
al. 2018). Sports organizations are more likely to invest in actions
that bring visible and meaningful local benefits to their supporters
(Trendafiova et al. 2017), often concentrated in a particular region.
In most cases, the species represented in the emblem is present in
the team's country (figure 4), making conservation actions more
visible and locally impactful. Wolves are a typical example of a

Least Concern species facing conservation conflicts across Europe
but that could benefit from more investment in conflict mitiga-
tion and environmental education (Di Bernardi et al. 2025). Here
lies a concrete opportunity to promote fan engagement and trans-
form individual and institutional behavior. For instance, sport or-
ganizations and their commercial partners could provide ma-
terial assistance to livestock owners and shepherds (e.g., provi-
sion of equipment such as stakes, nets), promote the sheep in-
dustry (e.g., meat and dairy products, wool) and encourage their
fan communities to engage with state agencies or nongovern-
mental organizations who seek volunteers and citizen scientists
to support wolf monitoring, assist livestock owners to prevent
wolf depredation (e.g., building livestock enclosures, guarding
livestock in pastures), or maintain communication across mul-
tiple stakeholders (e.g., livestock owners, tourists, farmers, state
agencies).
**Box 2. Frequency of animal classes, conservation statuses, and populations trends across regions.**

To assess the differences in wildlife representation, conservation status and population trends, we focused our analyses on wildlife taxa that could be identified to the species level (n = 84 after removal of two species with no data in the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN] Red List Database; i.e., *Latrodectus hasselti* and *Myrmecia pilosula*). We developed a resampling (randomization) approach based on 100,000 iterations of a randomized χ²-squared test to test the frequencies of counts in animal class representation, threat categories, and population trends across the five regions. We also applied exact binomial tests using the *binom.test* function in the R *stats* package to calculate the relative probability of selecting wildlife emblems among class levels. We did all statistical analyses in R (version 4.4.2; R Core Team 2024), and all code and data are available online (Bradshaw 2025). Because of a low sample size in animal classes that were not mammals or birds, we pooled them into an *other* class for these tests to ensure statistical robustness. Similarly, we pooled the Critically Endangered, Endangered, and Vulnerable categories into a threatened category and other statuses into a nonthreatened category. These tests indicated no evidence for a difference among regions in the frequency of counts in wildlife classes (i.e., mammals, birds, and other classes; the type I error probability of concluding a difference in class representation among regions, p = .499). However, the frequency of species in the two conservation statuses (threatened versus nonthreatened) differed among regions (p < .00001), and there was weak evidence for different directions in population trend (increasing, decreasing, or stable) among regions (p = .049). Furthermore, the exact binomial tests indicated that mammals were more likely to be selected than birds or other classes (pr*mammal* = .830–1.000, p < .0001), threatened species were more likely to be selected than nonthreatened species (pr*threatened* = .543–.637, p = .0002), and declining populations were more likely to be selected than stable or increasing ones (pr*decreasing* = .599–1.000, p < .0001; figure 5).

Taxonomic specificity is also an important element of sport-related conservation strategies. Our results show that while some teams use a specific species as their emblem (e.g., the Saitama Seibu Lions baseball club in Japan), many others (more than 300 teams in our database) use emblems that are not identifiable to the species level. For example, the San Jose Sharks ice hockey team (United States) feature a generic shark, with 70 species of shark present in that country alone, 44% of which are classified as Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered by the IUCN. The first case allows for highly targeted conservation strategies focused on lions, based on their Vulnerable status. The second presents opportunities for broader conservation strategies, potentially supporting a wider range of projects that could benefit both brand marketing and wildlife conservation. Both cases offer opportunities to harness the charisma of these species and their resonance among fan communities by using them as conservation flagships (Jarić et al. 2025). This could inspire broader biodiversity action and advocacy, helping to conserve landscapes or protected areas, thereby benefiting many other species that might not be related phylogenetically. This is an important concept about flag-

ship species: The disproportionate attention they receive can create a misleading impression of their importance and oversimplify the complexity of ecosystems and the levers (particularly financial) for managing them. Stewardship for the charismatic species should therefore be accompanied by a broader recognition that they are part of a vast tree of life shaped by ecological dynamics that require protection of entire ecosystems. They are also and above all emblems that help to generate support and funding for conservation.

Finally, exclusive use or sharing of the emblem by several teams could be an important factor in the strategies we present in the present article. In the highly competitive sport sector, unique associations with wildlife can offer distinct branding opportunities while reinforcing the responsible management of emblematic species. In addition, a flagship fleet featuring unique wildlife emblems, bringing together several sport organizations (e.g., within a league or country), could be established to pool resources and promote biodiversity conservation at local and international scales (Veríssimo et al. 2014). Conversely, we also observed some overlap in the choice of wildlife emblems, particularly among European and football organizations (figure 3, figure S4). Such overlaps pave the way for international or intersport conservation coalitions that could promote sport networks and mobilize greater support and resources for wildlife conservation. These connections between sport and wildlife conservation are possible, as is illustrated by initiatives like the Tigers United Consortium—a coalition of universities that share the tiger as their emblem in collegiate sports and act for tiger conservation—or the partnership between the Saitama Seibu Lions and the Oxford Department of Zoology to support the Trans-Kalahari Predator Programme. However, these examples are rare, and there is currently no overarching framework to foster long-term and sustainable collaborations between the sport industry and biodiversity conservation (Arbieu et al. 2025).

**Future research avenues**

To guide the integration of biodiversity conservation on the sustainability agenda of sport organizations, conservationists need to understand the various motivations behind wildlife selection as sport brand emblems. Such motivations could relate to the communication of values through species' traits, like the Toyota AnTELopes basketball club in Japan, chosen for their symbolism of elegance and explosiveness; to cultural legacy, as in the Quetzaltes Sajoma basketball club in Mexico that uses the quetzal (*Tragooidae* spp.), an emblematic bird from the Maya and Aztec cultures (Cocker and Tipling 2013); to visual attributes, like the Juventus football club in Italy, nicknamed "the zebras" (*Equus quagga*), because of their black-and-white jersey; and to ecological relevance, like the Auckland Tuatara baseball club in New Zealand using an endemic and phylogenetically unique species of reptile (*Sphenodon punctatus*). More research could examine these motivations and test their relative importance to identify the most relevant leverage points and address conservation issues relating to the respective sport organizations' identities.

We investigated only animal species used as emblems by sport organizations, discarding plant species that are also present in sport iconography (although to a lesser extent). We also confined our search to 10 countries and 10 team sports per region and only included the top-tier leagues in each country, ignoring several countries, leagues, levels of play (e.g., collegiate sport, national teams) and sports (e.g., ground hockey, netball or esports) from the analysis. Our estimation of the potential for biodiversity
conservation in global team sports is therefore conservative. Additional research could also design species trait analyses to determine the drivers of emblem selection across socioecological contexts (e.g., size, trophic level, behaviour, color), which could be paired with genuine semiotic analysis of the logos themselves to identify which traits are most salient.

Our study is only a first step toward a promising field of inter-disciplinary research at the intersection of the natural, sport, and social sciences. Therefore, engaging sport organizations in conservation efforts could therefore become a novel strategy to raise awareness and foster positive environmental outcomes (Arbieu et al. 2025), aligning teams' values and fan sentiment with biodiversity goals.

## Supplemental material

Supplemental data are available at BIOSCI online.

## Acknowledgments

RAC acknowledges personal funding from the Research Council of Finland (grant agreement #348352) and the KONE Foundation (grant agreement #202101976). FC, CB, IJ, PC, BL and SR are funded by their salary as French public servants. EDM acknowledges funding by the European Union (ERC, BIOBANG, 101171602) and the KONE Foundation (grant agreement #202309134).

## Data Availability

All code and data are available online at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15282525.

## Author contributions

U. Arbieu (Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - original draft), C. Bellard (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), C.J.A. Bradshaw (Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing), R. Correia (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), P. Courtois (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), E. Di Minin (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), I. Jarić (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), J.R. Murfree (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), M. Orr (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), S. Roturier (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), M. Sartore-Baldwin (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), D. Veríssimo (Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing), and F. Courchamp (Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing - review & editing)

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