The Power of An Athlete

July 9, 2010

The Power of An Athlete

Sports…why do they have such a huge impact on almost every aspect of our lives? After an hour long special coverage on what could have been a ten minute coverage for LeBron James to announce his “decision” to play for Miami Heat, one more blog on him and the impact of professional athletes on not only people, but companies too, cannot be considered too much to say the least. This will continue to be discussed for…well, a long time.

Not only LeBron, but take a look at the World Cup for example and the impact it has had on peoples lives for the past several weeks. People want to watch the games while at work, get together with friends at bars to drink a few beers and discuss every play made in the game, etc. Not to say it’s not fun to do these things, but why? Why are we so intrigued with people who throw or kick a ball around and get paid millions to do it well?

How would you feel if you had Nike, Adidas, Vitamin Water, or whoever it may be to want YOU as the face of their product. As for Nike…well, LeBron IS the face of Nike. Advertisements thrive off of people like James. Must be nice.

Advertising is a huge part of not only the athletes themselves, but also the actual sporting events. One of the main attractions of watching the SuperBowl is the commercials. Companies pay millions, even billions, of dollars to have their product shown for maybe 30 seconds during commercial time.

So in the world of business and advertising, I would say athletes do a pretty good job for them. People like James are good at selling products, even when they don’t even have to try.

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