Not all professional athletes make millions of dollars like those that participate in smaller non revenue accumulating sports. In order to be able to be a professional athlete full time, many of these less popular athletes have to rely on the products and money they get from their sponsors and advertisers. Other athletes, that are in the limelight however, make much more money playing their sport and sometimes more from their sponsorship deals. One of the earliest athletes to really do this was professional basketball player, Michael Jordan who used his basketball skills to promote many products in addition to apparel, toys, items and even basketball videos with his likeness on them.
Wherever there is room to promote a sponsor, they will find a method to do it whether it is on the helmet of a professional NASCAR racer or in the form of a temporary tattoo to professional beach volleyball players like Gabrielle Reece. Athletes are given wonderful package deals to endorse a particular brand as a sort of spokesperson and in exchange they get monetary and product compensation. For the lesser known athletes, this is very helpful to provide them with the extra income they need to be able to work out and compete full time. For other well paid athletes like professional baseball, basketball and football players it is just icing on the cake.
Michael Jordan was one of the first professional athletes to really be endorsed by various sponsors and he ended up making more from those endorsements than he did playing basketball. Certain businesses saw the total star power in Michael Jordan and knew he would make the perfect marketer for their product. One example was Gatorade which was a sports drink that had existed for some time but when they got Michael Jordan to endorse Gatorade, sales rose quickly and it became the top selling sports drink.
Now younger professional athletes that are making it to the big leagues see product endorsements as part of the package deal when they become a professional. A lot of new athletes that are confident in themselves and their ability to sell items even hold out for multi million dollars contracts today. One example of that younger big time player is Le Bron James. He made it into the headlines for his basketball abilities saying he was the next Jordan when he was just a sophomore playing in Akron, Ohio. Now he is one the largest paid athletes with several lucrative endorsements.
The largest grossing professional athlete to receive the largest amount of endorsement deals ever is PGA professional, Tiger Woods. As an individual athlete, he is not paid by salary but rather by performance and the number of large golf tournaments he wins. Because he has been such a powerful and likeable force in his sport, his endorsements deals are earning him many million every year on top of his golf earnings. He also has lost several of these sponsors with the recent scandals of his many infidelities.
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