Athletes as Celebrities; some history as well as look at impact media has on it

Essay by TeeJayOrTjCollege, UndergraduateA+, March 2004

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Athletes as celebrities can be dated back to the ancient Olympic Games, but the rise of athletes as celebrities took off in the early 1900's. Athletes began to be used to market cigarettes and cigars, inside the packs they used to include some of the first baseball cards. Out of this Idea came one of the most valuable baseball cards of all time with one of Honus Wagner worth well over 500,000 dollars (www.money.cnn.com). By 1975 with the rise of color TV, celebrities appeared in one out every eight advertisements. The more technology grew the more we were able to know about celebrities which means the more we want to know. Athletes are not an exception to this and people today want to know more then how the player performs on the field but also desires some of the extratextual information about the athletes behind the scenes. There is a show on Fox Sports Net called Beyond the Glory which airs regularly and profiles athletes and discusses their younger days and the problems they encountered growing up, they have profiled athletes like Kobe Bryant, Sammy Sosa and Mike Tyson.

It seems it is common to profile athletes who have undergone some type of media scrutiny which adds to the intrigue about the athlete....thus increasing the ratings. The fact that there are many channels devoted entirely too sports allows for fans to get a more in depth look into the life of the athlete. Even on MTV shows such as Cribs you get the chance to view many celebrities' houses and a common celebrity is the athlete and viewers got the chance to see the most private places for these athletes and that is their house. In the world today athletes can not escape the constant media pressure as people always...