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IS STEVE YOUNG NOT THE MARKETABLE STAR SOME THOUGHT?
Published May 31, 1995
After being Super Bowl MVP, Steve Young was expected to have a high endorsement profile. "So, where is he?," asks Sean Horgan of the HARTFORD COURANT. "Why isn't he throwing passes to Tweety for Big Macs, or running over Wile E. Coyote for some french fries. ... It's as if he grabbed the Super Bowl MVP trophy, went to Disney World and never came back." Young has deals with Sprint, Frito-Lay, Nike, Rawlings, Scoreboard and All-Sport which pay him around $3M a year -- much more than other sports stars. But Leigh Steinberg, Young's agent and investor in Integrated Sports International, the sports marketing firm that handles Young, said the low-key approach has been by design: "We turned down a large number of endorsements and decided not to do a lot of regional and local ads that were offered." Steinberg said the public "is going to start seeing ads on a national level featuring Steve." Horgan writes that one of the reasons Young may be careful about marketing himself is that he hopes to enter politics and "he has to be careful about potential conflicts of interest." Young's religion also "shapes his choice of commercial enterprises," as a Mormon he won't endorse any products that involve caffeine, alcohol or tobacco (HARTFORD COURANT, 5/29).




