In the present age, a number of well-known players are doing different types of product advertisements. In this essay, I will throw some light on the benefits and drawbacks of this trend.
Let’s begin by looking into the merits of endorsements by sports persons. Firstly, players can promote certain products in a better way because they themselves use some of these items in their line of work. Wasim Akram, for instance, does the advertisement of an energy drink which he consumes while playing the game. Because of this reason, his endorsement of the product sounds genuine.
Secondly, players can make money by doing various types of advertisements. In general, advertisement companies give approximately millions to the players who work for them. This is a great opportunity for them to convert their popularity and brand value into money.
On the other hand, there are some downsides to these celebrity endorsements. Primarily, this could take away the players’ focus from the game. To elucidate, last year, Shahid Afridi, a renowned Pakistani cricketer, was not able to perform as expected in Asian Cup. Some people assert that this happened because he was featured in myriads of advertisements at that time which took his concentration away from the match. Furthermore, athletes could become money minded if they do a lot of advertisement campaigns. The result of this could be devastating for the players and ruin their game career. What’s more, sometimes players endorse poor quality products just because they are offered truckloads of money. This is a total misuse of the trust their admirers have placed in them.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that popular players are advertising several products and this phenomenon has some obvious drawbacks and benefits which are given in the above paragraphs. Despite of the fact that it is up to the players to decide whether or not they should do these types of advertisements.