Back in 2021, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) removed the "Name, Image and Likeness" policy, meaning that athletes could make money from sponsorship deals based on their celebrity. Now of course, athletes are complaining because it isn't fair - the pretty people are getting the lion's share of the money - especially on the female side of the sporting world - even if they aren't necessarily the best in their sports.
Is this unexpected?
What is Name, Image, and Likeness?
Also known as NIL and used by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), name, image, and likeness refers to the unique characteristics of a student-athlete. This covers not only the three main components of the phrase, but also nickname, signature, individual symbol, design, social media account, or other things that would fall under the NIL umbrella.
"Unique characteristics" have nothing to do with sporting prowess, does it? It is about the person as a product, not their ability to perform. And, since the money is coming from advertising, advertisers are going to pay according to the marketability of the athlete, regardless of their skill. It is not that skill is unimportant, but they do not have to be at the pinnacle of their sport, to be marketable.
The companies that are paying them are selling products, not sports. What they are investing into is the hope for more eyes on what they are selling, with people who are willing to buy it and as such, only care about sporting accomplishments when it gets more eyes on their product. If the sporting accomplishments are exceptional but don't bring in the right eyes, there is no point in them advertising through that athlete. If there is an average athlete that will bring in more eyes to their product, then that is the way they will go.
While this might not seem "fair", the fact is that it comes down to the consumers, who have expectations and preferences that trigger their buying behaviors. Like it or not, advertising is a business and the advertising is designed to influence their audience. This is why they use social influencers, not game influencers, unless a game influencer is also a social influencer, or has the potential to be. However, in the world of Instagram and TikTok, it is far easier to start with someone who is already accepted by the community as the type of celebrity they are used to following. Pretty people are obvious.
Why was Anna Kournikova so famous?
If you are old enough to remember her at all, there was plenty of arguments about her getting a lot of sponsorship deals because of her looks, but was considered an average tennis player.
She made it to No. 8 in the world.
That isn't average.
But her brand value wasn't in her ability to play tennis, it was on her ability to sell products by being recognizable for what made her unique in the tennis world at the time - her looks.
People have a problem with this because it goes against the concepts of meritocracy, since it is based on what is generally good genetics, or good surgery. However, the advertising "merit" of a particular person is also something factored in to the sponsorship deals, so athletes like Olivia Dunne are able to rake in millions in NIL contracts, even though they aren't the best at what they do. But then, professional sports people tend to get paid above what professionals do in other areas anyway, often because they were born with good genetics and opportunity.
Fair?
Our world isn't fair. The best people and those who add the most society, aren't necessarily the ones who make the most money. It isn't a meritocracy, and never will be, because we as a society are the ones who create the incentive and pay the rewards. What we demand creates the algorithms of who gets paid and it is pretty clear what we value, where a footballer can be offered a billion dollars a season, yet a cancer researcher has to beg for donations and charity.
In this sense, it is completely fair that the prettiest people are those who get rewarded the most, because they are the ones who trigger the algorithms that feed us what we want the most. We want to see pretty people and star athletes, not lab assistants and teachers.
We want to be entertained. We want to see celebrities.
Whether it be from sports, music, movies or politics - we care more about satisfying our need to feel close to fame, than our need to solve actual problems in our world that impact heavily on our lives. It might not be fair that one sports person makes more than another because of their looks, but put it into context, and getting paid much for being an entertainer isn't really fair at all, is it?
Generally, the people who improve our lives the most,
we pay them as little as we can
Barely recognizing them at all.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
