Sports celebrity endorsements and retailing:can athletes provide a competitive advantage?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend previous research into sport celebrity endorsements by investigating such endorsements of products ultimately sold by retailers. This is done by updating previous research involving print media in sporting magazines. Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis approach is used, examining advertisements in randomly selected issues of sports illustrated from the most recent full six years of publication. Findings – Changes in the frequency of advertisements using sports celebrities were found compared to previous studies. Additionally, it appears that products which are ultimately sold by retailers are endorsed more frequently by celebrities in certain sports than others. Originality/value – By including in the investigation the topics of sport played and consumer products, the paper extends the current literature to explore the advertisers' use of athlete endorsers with products directly and indirectly impacting retailers