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Over the past three decades, how many Olympic athletes can you name? Did your memory conjure up images of the medal ceremony or the face on the Wheaties box? “Being an Olympic athlete can be a very depressing experience: You spend four years grinding away for that one Olympic opportunity where you become really huge, if you’re lucky, for 3 or 4 weeks, and then you go back into oblivion,” said Boyce Watkins, a faculty affiliate at the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Well, this ill-fated reality for some is far from the truth for those Olympic athletes who find themselves signing an endorsement deal. Continue Reading »

The Olympics may be over, but the excitement is just beginning for the world of swimming. Thanks to world record-shattering performances in the pool, the Michael Phelps name is poised to become one of the most powerful brands in sports. Some say his equity is already strong enough to launch an entire company.

A big name can do a lot, giving personality and shape to an otherwise amorphous brand. Nike, who successfully partnered with Michael Jordan as both an endorser and eventually the namesake of the Air Jordan product line, has proven time and time again that brands can inherit the positive attributes of their spokespeople.

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With the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games right around the corner, it is only fitting that we take a look at the history and meaning of the official Olympic Emblem, otherwise known as the Olympic Rings. Continue Reading »