Angels LF Mike Trout's "marketing moment has arrived," as companies -- "both blue-chip big and start-up small -- are wanting Trout to turn a double play as baseball's most exciting young player and Madison Avenue's desirable rookie pitchman," according to Marcia Smith of the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER. BodyArmor, Nike, Subway, J&J Snack Foods and Eastbay, among others, "already make up Trout's nascent endorsement portfolio, which is worth an estimated" $1.5-3M in '13. As part of Trout's multiyear deal with Nike, he will wear for the first time "a Nike (not Rawlings) glove and Nike (not Oakley) sunglasses." He also wears the company's running shoes during warm-ups, and he sometimes "sports red Nike armbands stitched with '27' in white thread." Trout appears in ads for New Jersey-based J&J Snack Foods, which "makes the popular frozen SuperPretzel he ate growing up," and he has been "in Internet videos and on the direct-mail catalog Eastbay." Trout in September signed a multiyear partnership with BodyArmor that paid him an "undisclosed amount and an equity stake in the company." BodyArmor uses Trout's images "on its point-of-sale materials, on a van and on its Web and social media sites." Meanwhile, Trout has swung an Old Hickory bat "since he turned pro, but is not compensated by the company." Should Trout "continue his historic ways, a bidding war for everything Trout touches could break out." The Marketing Arm Sports Marketing Dir Darin David and PR consultant Joe Favorito "believe Trout could be the next Derek Jeter, baseball's top pitchman." But having Jeter's "mainstream endorsement muscle will take Trout more than one historic season" (ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 3/9).
