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 rely on the products and paychecks they receive 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 several products in addition to apparel, toys, items and even basketball videos with his likeness 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 temporary tattoo to professional beach volleyball players like Gabrielle Reece. Athletes are given wonderful package deals to promote a certain brand as a kind of spokesperson and in exchange they get compensated with paychecks and products. For the lesser known athletes, this is extremely helpful to offer them the needed income to be able to train full time. For other highly compensated athletes in sports as professional baseball, basketball and football players it is simply the cherry on top.

Michael Jordan was one of the first professional athletes to really be endorsed by various sponsors and he ended up making more from those sponsors than he did from shooting hoops. The inital companies 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 rose quickly and it became the best selling sports drink.

Now younger professional athletes that are making it to the big leagues see product endorsements as part of the entire 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 dollars endorsement these days. 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 a young school kid playing in Akron, Ohio. Now he is one the biggest paid athletes with several lucrative endorsements.

The biggest grossing professional athlete to have the greatest amount of endorsement deals ever is PGA professional, 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 several million every year on top of his golf earnings. He also has recently lost many of these sponsors with the latest scandals of his several infidelities.

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Sports & Recreation