Athlete role models and their relationship with sponsors and endorsements
Sponsorships and endorsements have evolved into an integral part of modern-day sports. Counterintuitively, they developed almost hand-in-hand with the sport industry itself over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, sponsors have become a vital part of the industry and the flow of money into the veins of sports, form the lion’s share of the industry’s turnover. For athletes, the funds they secure for endorsements and from sponsors constitute an important part of their income. In some cases, the monetary rewards from such activities far surpass their base salaries; that is, the contracts with their club. During his second spell at Manchester United in 2021, Cristiano Ronaldo was making more money from his sponsors – taking home around £36 million – than from his very generous salary from the Red Devils (around £550,000 pw).
