Olympic Athlete Endorsements

After Michael Phelps record setting summer Olympics in Beijing where he eight gold medals, there were many companies knocking at his door wanting him to endorse the products.  The two companies that he does endorse are Speedo and Kellogg's.  Speedo being the one of the biggest swimming apparel providers in the world and Kellogg's a family oriented cereal company.  When the picture of Phelps smoking Marijuana at a college party leaked these two companies happened to be in two very different situations.  The decision for Kellogg's to drop him did not come as a surprise to many,but the decision for Speedo to keep him on as a endorser was.  Let us first justify why Kellogg's did what it did and dropped his endorsement contract.  The Olympics is only every four years, and if this is the only time that people really follow swimming why keep a person on to endorse you when they can't keep a good image and they are really not in the spot light to endorse your product.  This is more than likely what Kellogg's had going through their minds when they decided to drop him.  Why keep him around, there were more down sides to keeping him on than there were upsides.  So in other words it was best to just cut their loses and move on.  Now to justify why Speedo kept him is a whole different story.  The consumers who buy Speedo products follow swimming outside of when it is on during the Olympics.  If Speedo were to drop him there would be a whole slew of companies, that are Speedo's competitors, coming to sign him to a sponsorship deal.  While in society he may be considered a deviant, in the swimming society he is still the worlds best known swimmer and the greatest swimmer maybe of all time.  It would be like Nike cutting off Tiger Woods for his actions, that would be catastrophic to the sales of the product.

Just because I think that Speedo was justified in keeping Phelps as a sponsor, does not mean that I agree with his actions.  In fact I think that a "moral clauses" in contract as big as the one he signed is a great idea.  You are making millions of dollars at the sake of a companies brand and image, the least you can do is behave yourself or at least be smart enough to do it in private.  I do not think we have enough instances where world famous athletes are held responsible for their actions.  When I mean held responsible I mean money wise, which is why I truly believe that moral clauses need to be in every contract anyone signs.  I think that Phelps has felt the wrath of his moral clause, and more athletes need to go through the same thing he is.