A) Do you have a SuperBowl ring or not?B) Are you considered a high expectation success or bust?C) Have you been embroiled in some type of public scandal?D) Do you have a celebrity wife or girlfriend or not?E) Are you black or white?F) Are you generally considered physically attractive or not?10. Brady Quinn - Seen as high expectation bust. Publicly criticized Tim Tebow. You go against Tebow, you are enforcing the marketing equivalent of sticking a gun in your mouth. The two people in sports that you can't criticize too harshly without massive backlash are David Stern and Tim Tebow. 09. Mark Sanchez - Seen as a high expectations bust and a road block to "God's choice for QB1". Privately treated harshly by media outlets and corporations who were banking on his heritage to open new marketing opportunities for the NFL. Has a string of celebrity GFs in the most microscoped city for sports in NY. Also probably some unspoken resentment that it's generally the worst kept secret in sports that he bats for the other team. When your cough *best friend* cough is named Scotty and he's not working on getting you more warp power, you are going to have problems with your public image. 08. Santonio Holmes - Big spotlight. Seen as classical "archetype" malcontent angry black guy. 07. Kyle Orton - Fallout from Tebow. It's like being not in her prime Ashley Judd and getting all the attention and then everyone realizes Charlize Theron just showed up in a tighter dress and walks away to take her picture instead. 06. Tony Romo - Seen as a choker and seen as publicly betraying Carrie Underwood. Seen as betraying Jessica Simpson for being too fat. Lots of fat women in America. Many are angry and vindictive that Romo didn't just dump Simpson, but also did so for a beauty queen. 05. Matt Leinart - High expectations bust. Easy media target for perception of lazy but silver spooned. 04. Randy Moss - Seen as a waste of potential, even with a great career. Keys into the mainstreams unspoken resentment with the love/hate dynamic with African American athletes by the mainstream public. You want their autograph and you want to watch them, but you don't want them living in your neighborhood or your daughter to bring home someone just like that to marry. Moss IMHO is an emotional trigger point for an entire generation of disenfranchised white America who bites their tough for fear of a liberal PC bombardment of lawsuits and corporate workplace demise under the full weight of reverse racism. Moss is like the simmering slow boil anger people get when waiting in line at the DMV. 03. Michael Vick - People love dogs. If you walk past about 100 dogs in a day, how many times will you smile? If you walk past about 100 random adult human beings in a day, how many times are you going to smile? Issue that might even transcend the race component. People love dogs more than people love people. In fact, I think most people actually dislike most other people. A dog might #### on your carpet but only a human will try to #### on your face. 02. Jay Cutler - Celebrity girlfriend who is a reality star. Has zero public charisma. Seen as a malcontent and underachiever. Seen as generally unattractive.01. Ndamukong Suh - Perception of violent African American, while being a physically imposing and physically unattractive bully on the field. Take Grant Hill, the archetype of the kind of black athlete that most of mainstream America loves, and put everything in reverse. The result is Suh. Marketing is a very complex thing with celebrities but also with celebrity athletes. As a society, we love to build up a rising underdog, but we also love to tear people down when they get to the top, but we also love a good comeback/redemption story too. Several years ago, when the Vick scandal exploded, I said two things about it. First that, in time, people would move onto the next scandal. Second, that the first thing his PR people would tell him to do is cut his hair ( his dreadlocks at the time) Which he did. Some people laughed and mocked and said why would he need to cut his hair. Because it doesn't matter what the truth is, it only matters what the perception is to the public at large. Several years later, Big Ben got nailed in controversy involving two incidents with women. I said three things would happen. First, that the press, under the pressure of the Rooneys, who are instrumental to the big TV dollars the NFL gets, would do a full court press to spin control why Big Ben won't be traded or cut. Second, I said Big Ben would go deep under and a year or two later would get engaged to distance himself from the scandal. Third, that the NFL would not reduce the suspension to 2 games, under the base theory that the league would not want feminist lobbyist groups looking to shake down the NFL as a for profit martyr group to be able to tag line that " A woman's dignity is only worth one game each to the NFL" because of Big Ben. Curt Schilling is right. No one knows you. They just know what people write about you. And what people write about you is based on vested financial interests with sponsors, corporations and those deciding whether your positive or negative portrayal is worth anything to them or not. These polls are interesting because they are reminder that with celebrity and sports, the truth doesn't even matter, only perception does. It doesn't matter what you really did or did not do, it only matters how it makes people feel and if those feelings make them want to spend more money or not.
WTF
