The Celebrity of Athletes

Everyone has seen the Gatorade ads, the Nike commercials, and the billboards advertising their products with a popular athlete in the foreground. Athletes can use these advertisements to shape their image while also inspiring youth at the same time.

            Gatorade can be very picky about the athletes it chooses to appear in the advertisements. When young athletes see those Gatorade commercials, the makers want kids to be like “Wow, I want to be just like that famous athlete” which will cause them to then support Gatorade because their idol is backing it. Is it a bad thing for the athlete? Well not necessarily, many professional teams are endorsed by Gatorade and do in fact use their product to boost electrolytes and replenish their systems in order to perform fully throughout the entire game. Granted, one would not want to see a professional athlete advertising for a brand such as Marlboro Cigarettes. However, the chances of athletes endorsing anything other than sport related products are highly unlikely.

            While product advertising is popular, athletes are getting their names out there by supporting companies such as the Play 60 movement. This allows young kids to get on the field with professional athletes for a day and play sports with them in order to advocate physical activity. This gets the athlete good advertising by making good relationships with the kids, who will go home and look to support that player in different ways based on the connection they made. This is also a big endorsement for the community, trying to help get kids outside and playing in order to keep active and a healthy life style.

            While athletes are considered regular people, they do have a higher image to uphold. If professional athletes continue to advocate programs such as Play 60, and remain committed to companies such as Gatorade, their image can only improve. There will probably be an even bigger movement for athlete support in advertising as time goes on, but for right now I think athletes are devoting their face time to respectable causes, which helps both them and the community.