She’s visited Bristol’s coffee shops, climbed the city’s steep hills, and tucked into her first ever roast dinner – and each time Ilona Maher posts on social media of her exploits in Bristol, millions are following, hundreds of thousands are liking it, and scores, maybe hundreds are planning trips to the city to follow in her footsteps.
The Ilona Maher social media phenomenon is about to hit Bristol in the New Year and, for the TikTok generation of teenagers and 20-somethings, it could be just as valuable in terms of exposure for the city as the screening of a hit period drama or crime caper sitcom – if not more.
Signing the American rugby star was quite a coup for the Bristol Sport organisation, which includes the Bristol City men’s and women’s football teams, Bristol Flyers basketball teams, and Bristol Bears – for whom Ilona Maher could well be playing for in early January.
When news of the signing was announced back at the start of December, there were two distinct reactions from the residents of Bristol, even among fans of the Bristol Bears. It was either ‘who?’ or, for those who knew, it was ‘oh wow’. And if you’re not aware of the Ilona Maher-shaped whirlwind that’s about to hit the city, then it’s time to do your homework, and that starts right here.
So why is Ilona Maher famous?
Ilona Maher is a 28-year-old from Burlington, Vermont. She’s 5ft 10ins tall and 198lbs of women’s rugby power, who plays prop, wing or centre, where her strength and speed is a huge asset. After taking up rugby at the age of 17, she got into the US national team in the Sevens form of the game at 22, and was picked for the Covid-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and then also the bronze medal-winning Paris Olympics United States team.
That bronze medal was quite the achievement for the US women’s rugby team, in a country which goes all out on Olympic success, but one for which rugby is still a very niche sport, and women’s rugby even more niche.
But while she’s a try-scoring key member of a moderately successful international women’s rugby sevens team on the pitch, off the pitch, she’s hugely famous – and probably the first-ever rugby player, men’s or women’s, to be a household name in the USA. Millions more people know her, follow her and support her than have ever watched a game of rugby in their lives.
Her older sister Olivia is a social media content creator, and, as an older member of the Gen Z generation, Ilona herself began documenting the behind the scenes journey of the USA Eagles, the American women’s sevens team, as they went to Tokyo for those 2021 Covid Olympics. Her posts on TikTok initially, but then Instagram, went viral, and were shared far and wide outside the world of American rugby, and even sport itself.
With her striking looks, body-positive message and light-hearted fun videos, she rapidly gained hundreds of thousands of followers. Then millions. The 2024 Paris Olympics saw people seeking out her matches, and US national broadcasters showed them for the first time – almost entirely because of her. US TV execs looking for the Olympics glory stories had a ready-made name for their daughters’ generation.
Her numbers – and it is a numbers game – are extraordinary. She has 3.4 million followers on TikTok, where her videos have been liked 232 million times. On Instagram, she has 4.7 million followers. To put it into context, that’s millions more than any men’s rugby player past or present. That’s more followers than half the established England men’s international football team have.
After breaking her leg in 2023, she returned in time for the Olympics, but with a bigger name than ever. Either side of the Olympics, she threw the first pitch at a San Diego Padres baseball game, and posed for the cover of the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated.
After the medal success in Paris, she was a left-field but inspired pick to be one of the celebrities on Dancing with the Stars, the US version of our Strictly Come Dancing. Her size and strength flipped the narrative on the dancefloor, with her partner Alan Bersten – she was the first female partner in the show’s history to lift their male partner.
They reached the final and, on the last weekend of November – Thanksgiving weekend, in front of tens of millions of Americans – she finished as the runner-up, and cemented her place as a household name in the US. She was named on the Forbes ‘30 under 30’ sports list. She is, to put it simply, a huge deal.
Within days of her Dancing with the Stars adventure ending, however, she was on a flight to the UK. A teaser video showing her at the airport in the US flying to London had almost a million likes on social media. One fan, called Amy, commented: “Come play for Bristol, please!” Days later, she was standing on the pitch at Ashton Gate in the blue and white hoops of the Bristol Bears kit.
Why is she here?
After the Olympics and the Sevens tournament, the next big event in the world of women’s rugby is the World Cup, which takes place in August and September this year here in England. Ashton Gate itself is hosting some of the big games.
Ilona Maher’s rugby career on the pitch has been all about the Sevens game, with tournaments and international matches revolving around world championships and Olympics. Sevens rugby is probably as different, if not even more different, to traditional 15-a-side Rugby Union as five-a-side football is to 11-a-side, or Twenty20 cricket is to the Ashes.
To get into the US squad for the World Cup in the 15s game, Ilona Maher has to prove herself as international standard in that longer, harder, more physically demanding and more tactical and traditional form of the game. She can’t just walk into their existing squad on the basis of a few millions followers on Instagram and a few tries at the Olympics facing just seven opponents. To do that, she has to play the 15-a-side game, and get used to the kind of conditions she’ll face in September.
It has been a move long in the planning. The rugby ace has wanted to come to play in the PWR – the Premiership Women’s Rugby – for a couple of years, and several teams were interested but it never happened. Bristol Bears secured her signature, and it’s going to be a whirlwind few months in the New Year.
The PWR season isn’t particularly long – from October to February, and the team actually only have six games left of the 2024-25 regular season – more if they reach the play-offs. They are currently fifth, but just seven points off top spot in a league where West Country rivals Gloucester-Hartpury have been the dominant team.
The Bears contain stars of their own – Lark Atkin-Davies, Sarah Bern, Abbie Ward, Hannah Botterman, Phoebe Murray and Holly Aitchison are all England internationals.
It’s a move that has delighted the Visit Bristol tourist board almost as much as fans of the Bristol Bears women’s team and women’s rugby generally. Every post from Ilona Maher of her seeing the sights of Bristol, enjoying a roast at the Bank Tavern and a coffee at Wapping Wharf has been seen by millions, liked by hundreds of thousands and the comments section filled with fans, presumably from the US but also from the UK, saying they want to come to Bristol.
What has been the effect already?
The Ilona Maher Effect isn’t just confined to the ‘comment, share, like’ virtual world of social media. The Bears’ women’s section of the Bristol Sport club shop at Ashton Gate isn’t always the most in-demand area, but in the shop and online, jerseys have been selling out, along with other merchandise.
The team usually play their home games on an artificial pitch at Shaftesbury Park. It’s a modern, well-equipped little ground next to the M32 up in Frenchay that’s home to the famous Bristol amateur rugby club Dings Crusaders. It has a 200-seater stand, and maybe 1,000 can fit standing around the pitch.
Bristol Bears women’s games usually get a decent crowd there, but the ambition – as it is for Bristol City Women – is to expand the fanbase and have the women’s rugby team sell out Ashton Gate one weekend, the men’s rugby team the next.
So far, the Bristol Bears women’s team’s appearances at Ashton Gate have been limited to one-off matches each season, and encouraging double-ups with the men’s team, where the women’s match is played immediately before the men’s game and people come to both.
But the Ilona Maher effect has been immediate. The Bears’ next home game is a crucial top of the table clash against Gloucester-Hartpury – a re-run of last year’s play-off final which saw the Bear’s near-neighbours win 36-24. With six games to go, it’s not quite a title decider, but it’s very important, and the Bears would hope to see a full house at Shaftesbury Park.
With the news that Ilona Maher had signed, it sold out quickly. So Bristol Sport switched the fixture to Ashton Gate, and so many tickets sold there that they’ve now opened up the South Stand. It is going to easily smash the previous record for attendance of a Bristol Bears Women’s home match.
The rugby reality
Ilona Maher came to Bristol for a week or so when she signed, but then returned to the US and will be back in time to train ahead of the Gloucester-Hartpury game on January 5. Will she be ready to play? It’s an interesting question, and one which she’s addressed directly. Because, for all the buzz about having the world’s most famous women’s rugby player playing for the Bears, there’s the pure sport element to this, and the Bears want to win. Ilona Maher hasn’t played competitive rugby since the Olympics, and will be stepping into a fiercely competitive arena.
In a message to her fans and followers, she prepared them for the possibility that the thousands of new Bears fans might turn up to see her and she might not play. “I want to prepare myself as best as possible to make that team,” she said. “The first game I could be eligible for is January 5th but I want to make this clear, that potentially could be my debut, but as we know rugby is a very tough sport, for these months now, I’ve just been dancing, I haven’t taken the contact, i haven’t run full speed. So I’m going to try to prep my body and make it for that game, but I can’t promise anything.
“I don’t think that should deter you from going to that game. That game on January 5th will be top notch. It will be the Bristol Bears vs Gloucester-Hartpury, both amazing teams and that will be solid rugby. This will be another moment for you all to support women’s sport.
“They’ve already set a record for tickets sold for that game, so join history, come to that game. I’m going to be there, I’ll try to step onto the field, but even if I don’t, you’re in for a show. And remember, everybody watches women’s sports,” she added.
Whenever any team sports player achieves a fame off the pitch that’s disproportionate to their level on the pitch, there’s always an element of disapproval, a backlash and extra scrutiny. It was always claimed that whenever David Beckham signed for anyone the team only did it for the shirt sales, without realising how good a player he was.
Many a Premier League football team have been accused of signing players from the likes of Japan or South Korea with more of an eye on growing their brand in those massive football markets, rather than for pure footballing reasons. Arsenal, for instance, once signed South Korea’s captain and national hero Park Chu-young, and he played one game over three years.
Time will tell whether Ilona Maher has as much of an impact on the pitch as she is already having off it, but those who are preparing their sneers already forget two things related to sport and social media.
Firstly, Bristol Sport have a long and innovative history with social media. Back in the Lee Johnson era, Bristol City became the second team of many fans around the country and the world because on the pitch the exciting young team were beating the likes of Manchester United but off it, more importantly, the social media team were seen as being second to none. They invented ‘goal gifs’ – tweets with a little individual video of a player celebrating in a silly way whenever they scored. It meant Bristol City regularly went viral globally, and brought or contributed to a new buzz around the club.
Type the words ‘Bears fan now’ into the search bar of every social media – especially Instagram and TikTok – and you’ll see an entire generation of mainly young women from the US and the UK proclaiming a new allegiance to the club from Bristol. There’s no doubt now that, when Ilona Maher does arrive in earnest, the Bears will hope to raise their social media game.
And the second part is that social media is Ilona Maher’s actual job. None of the women’s rugby players in the PWR are completely full-time professionals – they all have other, part-time jobs. Perhaps the most famous in Bristol is Dr Simi Pam, a junior doctor at Southmead Hospital, and Bristol Bears battering ram of a prop forward. The reality is that the women’s game is a little bit behind women’s football in that upward curve, and is not yet at the level where players turn fully professional. Even in women’s football, players aren’t earning mega-bucks.
Last month, England football legend Lucy Bronze sparked a strange controversy when she simply pointed out that 99 per cent of women professional footballers weren’t earning the kind of levels that would mean they didn’t have to find another job or career when they retired from playing.
Ilona Maher has been able to play international rugby and have a second job that is literally just being Ilona Maher, such is her appeal, likeability, character and social media game. While many in older generations still might not see ‘being on Instagram’ as ‘a proper job’, the reality is that it’s one that can pay well, with ads, endorsements and sponsorships added to the basic money-per-view model that TikTok and Insta creators can bring in.
It’s a situation she is absolutely aware of, and, in much the same way as Dr Simi Pam might advise her team-mates on how to treat a nasty cold, Ilona is ready to help her team-mates with their Insta. She’s also quick to point out that, just because making TikTok videos is her job, doesn’t mean that she’s not going to be good at playing rugby.
“Being on the pitch is amazing, but in a way, as a female athlete, I have to do ten times as much off the field,” she said. “I can’t just play the sport I love. I am not going to make millions playing rugby. I’m not even going to make six figures playing rugby, that’s the sad truth. I’m not going to be like a men’s player, so I can’t put all my focus here, I have to put in everything else.
“I think some people maybe think ‘oh she’s not serious what she’s doing, she’s posting on TikTok she doesn’t care about the sport, she’s not going to be good’. No, I have to post on TikTok, that’s where I make most of my money, my livelihood. That’s where I spread my message and the game, but I also can put that aside and be a great player on the field,” she added.
Ilona said that she chatted with soon-to-be team-mate Hannah Botterman about joining forces to make more TikTok videos and social media content, and will link up with Bristol Bears too.
“I think it will be a cool learning curve, because it’s a different way that I do things, and how I’ve seen this productivity through social media, what it’s done for me – so I think that will be interesting to bring that into the Bristol Bears.
“We want to get more players into the game. Where are those players? They are on TikTok, they are scrolling apps. Bristol seems like the perfect place that wants me to do my thing and wants me to post my videos and whatnot, because they’ve seen the value in it, and I just hope that we can work together, mutually, beneficial to create something really big here,” she added.
Get ready, Bristol.