Not all professional athletes make millions of dollars like those that participate in smaller non revenue accumulating 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 sometimes more from their sponsorship contracts. One of the earliest athletes to really do this was professional basketball player, Michael Jordan who used his basketball skills to promote many products as well as apparel, toys, items and even basketball videos with his likeness on them.

Wherever there is room 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 body tattoo for professional beach volleyball player Gabrielle Reece. Athletes are offered great package deals to promote a certain brand as a sort of spokesperson and in exchange they get monetary and product compensation. For the lesser known athletes, this is very helpful to provide them with the extra income they need to be able to work out and compete 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 playing basketball. The inital companies saw the complete 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 coming into the game see product endorsements as part of the entire deal when they become a professional. Many 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 in high school playing in Akron, Ohio. Now he is one the largest paid athletes with multiple endorsements.

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