by Jan Hutchins, CEO of SocialAgenda Media. 

Every year the Super bowl attracts a bigger audience than any other watched event, more than 160 million people, fully half the nation will watch some part of the game so advertisers are willing to spend $3.5million dollars on a 30 second ad to reach that audience fascinated by athletes. This article will be timely and beneficial to those who wish they could afford a commercial during the game to associate their brand with sports legends.

Let me tell you how instead you can do it for under $10,000.

… I’ve been fortunate to be around great athletes my whole life. As a ten-year-old living in Ohio, several Cleveland Browns football players visited the home where I lived every Tuesday during the season for a barbecue.  Sharing burgers with my heroes began a process of humanizing sports celebrities that I find valuable today in running SocialAgenda Media where we handle entertainment PR and sports marketing for consumer and enterprise brands, authors, technology and lifestyle businesses.

An opportunity – plug into existing local sports events at a fraction of the cost and use it as a story teaser to take your PR nationwide

Those who are interested in sports celebrity endorsement deals might benefit from participation in one of our new client’s upcoming events, the Multi-ethnic Sports Hall of Fame. Hundreds of VIP guests and renowned athletes will be gathering to honor the class of 2013.

Olga Kostrova, my creative and charismatic partner at SocialAgenda Media, and I will be hosting a broadcast on March 22nd, talk radio live from the Multi-ethnic Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the famous Claremont Resort and Spa in Berkeley and there’s an opportunity within this event for you. In this article I will share with you how to get the best out of associating with a celebrity spokesperson, at a fraction of what it costs for something like the Superbowl, but first let me share some of my background.

You can get closer to celebrities by understanding them

Famous athletes are not my heroes anymore, they’re my friends, my clients and my partners.

Jan Hutchins with baseball celebrity Rollie Fingers

Jan Hutchins with celebrity boxers Joe Louis & Billy Con

Just a year out of college, I became a TV sportscaster and got to hang out with:

Pittsburgh Steelers at the beginning of the Bradshaw, Mean Joe Green, Franco Harris era;

Pittsburgh Pirates, including Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Doc Ellis;

Got to interview Joe Louis and Billy Conn, together (!);

Spent a week at Muhammad Ali’s training camp, which included a then unknown sparring partner named Larry Holmes;

Pitt’s superstar running back Tony Dorsett and now NBA GM, Billy Knight.

I was then blessed during 20 plus years on TV and covering sports in the Bay Area to be close to the great Oakland A’s title teams, 49er dynasty squads, Warrior’s title winning wonder-dogs. I watched Bruce Jenner train to become the world’s greatest athlete and created a kid’s TV show with Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott.

I’ve spent nearly 40 years experiencing real friendships with professional athletes. That’s long enough that watching games are not all fun and games for me because the frequent injuries feel personal. I feel the injured player’s fear it might all be over, the alienation from being apart from the team and the painful rehabilitation that lasts long after they’re carted off, thumbs up and waving to the crowd.

I’ve looked into the eyes of Willie Mays and seen the hurt from being exploited by those he trusted blind him to the adulation. Seen the same distrust with being idolized in his godson Barry Bonds. I’ve seen huge, powerful athletes after a few years without “training” (read using steroids) walk into the room 100 pounds smaller. My buddies have recreationally drugged themselves out of lucrative careers or died much too soon from the punishment they put their bodies through. So watching games I can look past the spectacle being presented and see the cold, hard business it is.

What do you need to understand from this? Before considering doing business with athletes, take them off your mental pedestal, humanize them, have compassion for their very human struggle. See what you can offer to satisfy their basic human needs, not just the monetary needs of their agents.

Realize just how much pressure comes with having a job where every year there’s a world-wide tryout for someone to replace you, where you’re competing with people willing to do all the things people will do for millions of dollars, serious injury is just a play away and especially in football and boxing life after the game is likely to be short and painful.

Why marketing through sport celebrities can be such an effective vehicle for PR and branding?

Think about this. Who’s the person you’d be most excited to meet? Why?

Looking around for idolatry indicators I see sports jerseys everywhere, and although some guy named Levi dominates the pant space and lovers are always calling out the name God, if we’re asked, Muhammad, Christ, Buddha and Krishna top the list we give people. But Muhammad Ali, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Tiger Woods top the list in our hearts. Few most admired lists would include boxer Floyd Mayweather, but the fact he earned 85 million dollars last year says something about his value in our capitalist world.

Other than the money, fame, physical prowess, and the fact they’re living the life we’ve dreamed of since we were seven, what is there about sports celebrities that vaults them above people who are actually making a meaningful, positive contribution to society? Why are they so effective as brand builders?

Every day there’s a celebrity golf tournament somewhere using athletes as the lure and selling memorabilia signed by them to raise funds for charities. There is no similar memorabilia market for Nobel Prize winners or soldiers just back from defending our freedom. As much as I appreciate the paramedic who saves my life, I don’t ask for her autograph and couldn’t sell it on E-Bay if I did. We appreciate the genius that creates technologies that reshape our reality but just think of them as rich geeks.

And don’t say it’s entertainers atop the wanna be list because, as cool as they are, when they really “make it” they want to own sports teams or buy front row seats to be up close and personal with the “real” celebrities. See Jay-Z, Jack Nicholson, Spike Lee, Justins Bieber and Timberlake.

I judge we’re dealing with a combination of the objective, undeniable, measureable, expression of excellence available in sport along with the power of television and its advertisers to create heroes and then rivet our attention on them. It’s a potent mix of actual physical greatness, flawed humanity and brilliant merchandising and the potential buyer you should beware. At the end of a sporting event the scoreboard defines the story, who won, who lost and by how much. Unlike other measureable areas of competition, like business for instance, the event is usually televised, and then replayed and discussed ad nauseum as if it’s actually important.

Why sign deals with athletes for product endorsements and how to get the best out of partnering with a celebrity

When we publicize our clients here at SocialAgenda Media, the articles we write about them and place in the media, tell their stories in ways that appeal to archetypal emotions and develop themes that touch all our lives and have mattered to people in cultures throughout time; love/hate, insecurity/safety, belonging/being alone, confusion/understanding, depression/creative energy, cooperation/competition.

Sport celebrities are ideal for businesses to use to project important aspects of their brand. Beyond just the association with success, they can represent overcoming challenges, good teamwork, innovation, humanness, prowess. We are embodied beings, relate to everything through our bodies and feel awe when we experience the amazing feats of speed, power, coordination and execution under pressure by great athletes. Awe is hard to experience in this modern, overanalyzed, fully explained, technical, often cynical world we live in today. Sports celebrities add that awe to your brand.

But, along with all the benefits brought by sports celebrities come all the issues that attach to all relationship with human beings, for as awesome as sports celebrities can be, they often fall prey to the temptations that come with being young (brains don’t fully form until age 25), rich and pampered and can take your brand down with them. Tiger Woods ruins his immaculate image because he can’t keep his ego in his pants. Don’t just do it! Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong and so many others are driven to cheat their way to the top. Having your spokesperson revealed as regularly drinking, drugging, having wild sex and partying late into the night will give your brand a hangover.

An opportunity – consider athletes’ career lifecycle, i.e., approach those who are approachable

Now back to the radio broadcast and Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Present there will be many examples of my key insight and offer to those considering using sports celebrities in marketing. Two words, retired athletes.

Free from the need to please the team’s ownership they can speak more honestly and colorfully. Old enough to have had their brains fully form and with the perspective of being “done” at 35 they’re more respectful of and empathetic toward others. Like many memories their exploits age well and the beyond their prime appearance makes them more accessible to audiences.

Whether you market a technology solution or business service to executives, launching a lifestyle relevant training program to teens, or promote a consumer product for baby boomers, retired athletes who carry success stories can add a strong voice to your brand. Have them deliver your message, and let SocialAgenda Media team spread it across the media universe. We will help you to make a deal and publicize it via major media outlets. We guarantee comprehensive media coverage.

Get in touch. Give what turned out to a lights out Super Bowl a break. Let’s explore the opportunity you actually can afford. 

“Jan and I go back more than 40 years and have developed real trust. I don’t believe there is anybody better at helping organizations understand how to publicize their business when engaging sports and entertainment celebrities than the PR team led by Jan and his partner Olga Kostrova.”, said Arif Khatib, founder of the Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame. ” Jan brings 40 years of experience as a journalist, covering sought-after athletes. He understands their needs and preferences. Olga adds strategic vision and creative spark to the process. Together they create relationships with their clients that are deeply satisfying and highly effective”.

Partner with SocialAgenda Media. Our advantage is the disruptive process that supports our philosophy. We develop stories and write well researched articles that are consequential, remarkable, and memorable. We get them placed in major media outlets, as well as on corporate portals, blogs, in newsletters. Content from all channels is propagated on social platforms to trigger social signals that improve search engine ranking and build your thought leadership position.

It’s PR + Content Development + SEO + Social Media Marketing + Thought Leadership Marketing…