Not all professional athletes make millions of dollars like those that participate in less traditional non revenue producing sports. In order to be able to be a professional athlete full time, a lot of these athletes have to count on the products and money they get from their sponsors and advertisers. Other athletes, that are constantly in the press however, make much more money playing their sport and sometimes more from their sponsorship contracts. 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 name on them.
Wherever there is space to promote a sponsor, they will find a way to do it whether it is on the helmet of a race car driver or in the form of a body tattoo to professional beach volleyball player Gabrielle Reece. Athletes are offered great package deals to promote a certain brand as a sort of spokesperson and in exchange they receive monetary and product compensation. For the less famous athletes, this is extremely 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 simply the cherry on top.
Michael Jordan was one of the first professional athletes to start this trend 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 could make their product be noticed with him promoting it. 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 went through the roof and it became the best selling sports drink.
Now younger professional athletes that are coming into the game see product endorsements as part of the entire deal when they sign professionally. A lot of new athletes that are confident in themselves and their ability to represent a product even hold out for multi million dollars endorsement these days. One example of that younger big time player is Le Bron James. He was in 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 multiple endorsements.
The largest grossing professional athlete to have the greatest amount of endorsement deals in history is golfer, Tiger Woods. As an individual athlete, he is only paid by performance and the number of large golf tournaments he wins. Because he has been such a high profile, successful and marketable player, his endorsements deals are earning him many million every year in addition to his golf earnings. He also has recently lost many of these sponsors with the recent scandals of his several infidelities.
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