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).
