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You're Famous? Why Are You Still In That Uniform?
Written by wrigleyville   
Thursday, 20 November 2008
What is the proper measure of fame for our professional athletes? Salary? Number of cars? Saturday Night Live appearances? No, no and no. The true measure of sports superstardom can be measured by what their sponsors make them wear in television ads: The level of stardom is directly proportional to the amount of work clothes they wear. Full uniform? You're a B-lister, though one who gets to make commercials. Sweater and jeans? Superstar, baby! Take this Sony Bravia commercial, featuring James Brown, Peyton Manning, the Chicken and Dale Earnhardt Jr.: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D6TBPl6B_U&hl=en&fs=1] JB wears his suit, which is kinda like his uniform. The Chicken, well, he's a chicken. Peyton is simply wearing a sweater because an acceptable percentage of the population knows who he is. Earnhardt? He's wearing his racing suit - because, as popular as NASCAR is, a huge chunk of the public would ask, "Who is that guy?" - and very well still may. Peyton generally is allowed to wear regular clothes in ads - unless they are linking it in some way to football (DirecTV Sunday Ticket, for example). Not all quarterback are created equal, however. Check out the fully uniformed Matt (or is it Tim?) Hasselbeck in these Expedia commercials: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=locNW8S_7wk&hl=en&fs=1] I'm still not sure which Hasselbeck it is, but he had to wear a helmet. Ouch. In other sports, even the alleged "greatest Olympian ever" needs help. Most of his ads - including those for Verizon and Rosetta Stone - feature him in a pool or swimsuit. Because, you know, he's a swimmer. Here's the Rosetta Stone ad, which takes the extra step of identifying him by name at the beginning: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R228MSqhm8&hl=en&fs=1] Speaking of Phelps, there's this Guitar Hero ad featuring Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant, Phelps and some guy in a helmet: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8mN0BePiqs&hl=en&fs=1] The guy in the helmet is skateboarder Tony Hawk. They didn't give Kobe a basketball, A-Rod a baseball bat or even Phelps some goggles (disproving the previous point, I suppose), but they needed to identify Hawk in some way. With the helmet, he's either a very old special needs student or a skateboarder or some extreme games type. The target audience likely would have an inkling, but the makers of Guitar Hero needed to be sure. There are countless other examples, including: Tom Brady's "pocket of protection" MasterCard ads in which he appears in a suit but his linemen are in full football gear. Derek Jeter's new Gatorade commercials have him wearing a suit. And then there's poor Fred McGriff.

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