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HeirJordanPlaying a sport
few people watch in a league few people know, Sheryl
Swoopescouldn't possibly be like Mike in terms of her earning
potential. Still, her $1.2 million in endorsements is a slam dunk. GIVEN HER ASTOUNDING ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS —as a senior at Texas Tech University, for instance, she broke Bill Walton's record for the most points ever scored in a Division I NCAA basketball championship game—you might expect Sheryl Swoopes to be fashionably blasé about a four-year-old sneaker deal. But if you ask the Brownfield native what it was like when Nike told her the company wanted to name its new women's basketball shoe Air Swoopes, she practically comes apart. "I was speechless," she says excitedly, her words tumbling out faster than her feet take her down the court. "I cried. I bawled. At first I thought they were joking. I don't even know what I thought. I was just out of it. I thought I was dreaming." If she was dreaming, she hasn't woken up yet. Since Nike announced the launch of Air Swoopes at a New York press conference in the spring of 1995, its 28-year-old namesake has won a gold medal as part of the United States' women's Olympic basketball team and two championship rings with the Houston Comets of the Women's National Basketball Association, married her high school sweetheart, become a mother, and perhaps most surprising, built an impressive endorsement portfolio. Through contracts with companies like Kellogg and products like Discover Card, personal appearances, and licensing deals—in addition to the original Air Swoopes, there have been three more versions of the shoe (a fifth will be in stores in July), three Swoopes basketballs, a Swoopes jersey, three Swoopes children's books, a Swoopes coffee-table book, a Swoopes trading card, a Swoopes phone card, and even a Swoopes action figure—she pulled in an estimated $1.2 million in 1998, quite possibly the most money ever earned in a single year by a female athlete who plays a team sport. In the complicated world of endorsements, several female athletes who compete individually earned more in 1998, including tennis star Steffi Graf (an estimated $5 million), ice skater Kristi Yamaguchi ($3 million), and skier Picabo Street ($2 million). And, not surprisingly, since professional sports is so heavily dominated by the other gender, many men earned more too. Michael Jordan, for instance, collected an estimated $17 million in endorsement contracts—the most of any athlete. In Texas alone six male athletes who compete in either individual or team sports topped Swoopes's take (George Foreman, $4.5 million; Emmitt Smith, $3.5 million; Troy Aikman and Charles Barkley, $3 million; David Robinson, $2 million; and Hakeem Olajuwon, $1.5 million). But that doesn't diminish what she has achieved. Sheryl Swoopes is the first female basketball player to become a marketplace star, making her $1.2 million a greater accomplishment than the others' multimillions. The story of her rise from small-town Texas girl to one of the nation's best-paid product-pitchers says a lot about her determination, and it says even more about the way endorsements work: who gets them, how much they're worth, and why. |
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