2018 Sport Marketing Association Conference (SMA XVI) Dallas, TX
2018 Sport Marketing Association Conference (SMA XVI) Retirement Effects on Athlete Brand Attributes and Equity Bo Yu, Texas A&M University Gregg Bennett, Texas A&M University Natasha Brison, Texas A&M University Friday, October 26, 2018 50-minute poster presentation 8:00-8:50 AM, Main Conference Atrium Retirement usually results in great financial losses for athletes due to the fact that most are unable to maintain endorsement contracts. For instance, NBA player Derrick Rose could lose more than $80 million from his endorsement deal with adidas if he chooses to retire after the 2017-2018 season (DePuala, 2017). While the change in endorsement contracts depletes salaries for most players, many athletes are also confronted with a number of occupational, emotional, and social adjustments during the career transition process (Grove, Lavallee, & Gordon,1997). Yet, some athletes are able to maintain their partnerships with sponsors after retirement. Badenhausen (2014) reported that a certain cluster of athletes (e.g. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Shaquille O’Neal) were even making more money after retirement. Michael Jordan hadn’t played an NBA game since 2003, but he still earned $90 million in 2013, thanks to the rich partnership with Nike’s Jordan Brand (Badenhausen, 2014). Shaquille O’Neal earns between $20-25 million per year due to post-career endorsements (Lamare, 2017). Interestingly, some sponsors are actually benefiting from athlete retirement. For instance, China Life Insurance launched a campaign featuring former NBA player Yao Ming to strengthen its brand influence in Singapore (Hicks, 2016). NFL player Vince Wilfork announced his retirement in 2017 on Twitter, in a video post sponsored by Kingsford Charcoal, a Clorox brand (Sheetz, 2017).
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