Not all professional athletes make a lot of money such as those that participate in less traditional non revenue producing 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 paychecks they receive from their sponsors and advertisers. Other athletes, that are in the limelight however, make a lot of money playing their sport and even more from their sponsorship deals. One of the first athletes to really do this was NBA player, Michael Jordan who used his basketball skills to promote several products as well as apparel, toys, products 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 professional NASCAR racer 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 lesser known athletes, this is very helpful to provide them with the extra income they need to be able to train 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 could make their product be noticed with him promoting it. One example was Gatorade which was a sports drink that had been around for quite a while 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 sign professionally. Many new athletes that are confident in themselves and their ability to sell items even hold out for multi million dollar 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 in high school playing in Akron, Ohio. Now he is one the biggest paid athletes with multiple endorsements.
The largest grossing professional athlete to receive the largest amount of endorsement deals in history is golfer, Tiger Woods. As an individual athlete, he is not paid by salary but rather by performance and how many big golf tournaments he wins. Because he has been such a high profile, successful and marketable player, his endorsements deals are earning him several million each year on top of his golf earnings. He also has lost several of these sponsors with the recent scandals of his many infidelities.
Coach Connor Sullivan operates a basketball web site that offers basketball videos training aids and coaching/instructional videos along with lots of free training advice. His brother ordered basketball skills aids and training aids videos from his website.
