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 sometimes 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 as well as 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 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 kind of spokesperson and in exchange they receive monetary and product compensation. For the less famous athletes, this is extremely helpful to offer them the needed income to be able to train full time. For other well paid 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 start this trend and he ended up making more from those sponsors than he did playing basketball. 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. A lot of new athletes that are confident in their sport 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 and noted to be the next Jordan when he was a young school kid playing in Akron, Ohio. Now he is one the largest paid athletes with several lucrative 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 only paid by performance and how many big golf tournaments he wins. Because he has been such a powerful and likeable force in his sport, 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.