Sport Sponsorship

What was one of the more interesting points about the reading for me was found on the top of page 186, and how the individual him or herself, rather than the place, is how the space is sold: "Perhaps the most disturbing manifestation of corporate censorship takes place when the space that is sold is not a place but a person." (Klein 186) This made me think of David Beckham and his individual sponsorship with Adidas, and how Adidas clearly uses him, his good looks, his celebrity status, and his ability to perform consistently well on the soccer field, to promote its product. It is also interesting to see how much pressure there is put on these athletes when a company invests so much in them. For instance, when Tiger Woods' sex scandal broke out before Thanksgiving of last year, 2 of his big sponsorships dropped him like a bad habit, because they did not want to have their product associated with him at all, which is funny in the sense that Tiger Woods has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the gillete shaving gel (one of the sponsors), but yet, the individual has essentially become the product itself, so the company or product ultimately rises and falls with that individual's status.