Everyone has heard of the huge money that superstars make simply for allowing their name to be attached to a product.
Cream of the crop athletes, such as Michael Jordan and David Beckham, make more money from their endorsement deals than they make actually participating in the sport that made them famous in the first place.
The best endorsement deal of all time has to be George Foreman and his “seal of approval” on the George Foreman Grill.
Instead of a cash payment, Foreman negotiated 45% of the profits on sales of the product. Sales were so robust for the grill that a few short years later the other owners of the company agreed to buy out Foreman for $150,000,000 plus royalties.
While the views from the top of Endorsement Mountain are fantastic, the long fall off the mountain can be painful and costly.
Bad behavior off the playing field has cost countless millions of dollars to certain superstars.
Although it is impossible to fully quantify, following is the Wildcatters Network list of athletes that lost the most amount of potential endorsement money from their off-field activities.
