What Drives Endorsement Earnings for Superstar Athletes?

The market for athlete endorsements represents a multi-billion dollar market that continues to grow. Athlete endorsement is clearly a popular marketing tool that receives significant attention in the trade/popular press, but the academic literature specifically focused on athlete endorsements (as a subgroup of celebrities) is sparse. As such, the authors undertake an analysis of the endorsement market to determine the factors that drive variation in endorsement earnings, including exposure of the athlete to the public, familiarity of the athlete, and likability of the athlete. The data used for this analysis span Sports Illustrated's Fortunate 50 list for nine years. Six regression models are examined, with resulting analyses yielding goodness-of-fit measures ranging from 43% up to 86%