Sponsorship and advertising has changed with the introduction of sport as a big business. Previously the NRL Premiership was known as the Winfield Cup promoting tobacco products and encouraging the culture of smoking after sport as a self-reward. We have seen a shift in major sponsors from alcohol companies to more family friendly companies like Harvey Norman and Telstra which allows us to connect with the sport.

Sponsorship and advertising means there is a large amount of pressure on athletes to perform consistently in order to maintain major sponsorship. included in elite contracts are paragraphs dedicated to athlete’s upholding the good name of the sponsor and poor behaviour may result in the removal of that sponsorship.

At the lower levels of sport, Little Athletics’ major sponsor for many years has been McDonalds which caused confusion between encouraging young athletes to be physically fit but eat a high fat and high sugar diet.

At the top of sponsorships and advertising are people such as Roger Federer who has earnt enough prize money to be his own sponsor. As opposed to Ash Barty who doesn’t earn the same prize money because she is a female athlete even though she is at the same level of elite competition, albeit for a shorter time.