After he finishes up in Lincoln, the artist will be performing this week in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Denver. He’s second-billed to American silver-medalist Shannon Miller on a national tour of top gymnasts. And while $50,000 for a couple of months on a pommel horse is megamoney back in Minsk, Scherbo has yet to attract any big corporate sponsors or Hollywood producers searching for a young Baryshnikov type. In fact, Scherbo’s real commercial appeal may lie a good bit farther west, in India. “People tell me I am so popular there that if I drink Coca-Cola or anything,” he says, “everybody in India will drink Coca-Cola.”
Scherbo is not the only Olympic star who has been disappointed in the commercial riches awaiting him or her in the United States. Even America’s own champions, who went to Albertville and Barcelona bedecked head to toe by corporate sponsors, have found the same coffers closed when they tried to cash in on their Olympic successes. With the nation still locked in a recession, advertising dollars are scarcer and rationed far more selectively. The Olympics are yesterday’s newspaper, says David Burns of Burns Sports Celebrity Service. " Not nearly as many commercials come out of the Olympics as go into them." So “Dan and Dave,” who were on TV earlier this year more than George and Bill, are now part of commercial history. Nor has Reebok yet used Robert Zmelik, the young Czech decathlete who, in fact, proved to be the world’s greatest athlete in Barcelona.
Of course, there are many levels of celebrity and many ways to strike a golden vein. For instance, Gail Devers, who rebounded from Graves’ disease to win the 100-meter dash, is a natural as a motivational speaker. And there’s plenty of motivation for her, what with top stars getting between $5,000 and $15,000 for appearances. American stars have also discovered that their most lucrative opportunities may be overseas. Carl Lewis, certainly the greatest Olympic performer in U.S. history, was long regarded as too arrogant for mainstream American audiences. But in Europe and Japan, advertisers rushed to exploit his demigod status. Last spring, Panasonic made him its international pitchman, and his inspiring performance in Barcelona may yet make him a salable commodity at
When today’s Olympians dream, they always seem to aim higher than the rubber-chicken circuit or a pocketful of yen. If the dream had a name, it might be called the Full Mary Lou Retton. “Hopefully, you get the chance to do more and more ads and just possibly you can become a star,” explains Miller, who did her first ad for the game Trivial Pursuit. Or as boxer Eric Griffin expressed it pre-Barcelona, first you win the gold medal, then garner endorsements for absolutely everything–finally your handsome visage winds up on a Wheaties box. Griffin’s dream ended in the ring in Spain. But the Wheaties box scenario is pretty much a pipe dream. Only three Olympians (not counting basketball star Michael Jordan)–pole-vaulter Bob Richards back in the ‘5Os, decathlete Bruce Jenner in the ’70s and gymnast Retton in the ’80s–have parlayed Olympic glory into being the actual champion for the breakfast of. " The perception is, you win a gold medal and there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," says Kevin Albrecht of IMG Canada, who represents figure-skating gold-medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. “But the truth is, it’s only there for the exceptions.”
No personality emerged from the ‘92 Games with the pizzazz of a Mary Lou. But Foote, Cone & Belding, the giant ad agency, designated nine Olympic champions-including the collective Dream Team-as solid gold. They range from Yamaguchi (“consummate grace under pressure”) to the lone non-American, Italian skier Alberto Tomba (“the Olympics’ biggest sex symbol”) to swimmers Pablo Morales (“hunk city”) and Summer Sanders (“golden girl”). But if “solid gold” means autograph sessions at Herman’s World of Sporting Goods,as it did for Tomba in New York one recent weekend, then it is being paid out one small nugget at a time. His appearance was part of his multi-year deal with Rossignol, the ski manufacturer that has helped make Tomba a wealthy man. He was a good sport about it, showing up at midday on the Yuppie Upper West Side to discover it had been invaded by young women in stylish Eurodress: short skirts and stiletto heels. Sales that day were almost three times normal.
The Foote, Cone list includes the world’s greatest woman athlete, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the heptathlete, who added a gold medal in Barcelona to the two she won in Seoul. She has attracted a slew of offers to endorse everything from sunglasses to business systems–and may end up accepting most of them. Her husband and manager, Bob Kersee, won’t give out dollar figures but has publicly rejoiced at the prospect of being married to a millionaire. Joyner-Kersee’s success represents a major change in the American vision of beauty. Four years ago she was overshadowed by her flashy sister-in-law, Florence Griffith-Joyner, who was glamorous down to her extraordinary fingernails. Joyner-Kersee is merely strong, smart and radiant–a neater symbol for the ’90s.
Sex and gold, though, remain an almost unbeatable combination. This year, Katarina Witt was still used to sell diet Coke as the sexy soft drink. And 16 years after scoring a perfect 10, Nadia Comaneci can be seen most everywhere in her Jockey underwear. Sexual energy without gold or even bronze is also highly regarded. Runner Suzy Hamilton, an attractive blonde, is still being featured in TV ads for a shampoo despite a dismal Barcelona performance.
It is Kristi Yamaguchi who, with her skating crown, may own the most valuable franchise of all. After all, Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill are still marketable 24 and 16 years respectively after winning their skating golds. Yamaguchi is no longer just the girl next door. Her appearance in recent fashion ads, which ran in both Vogue and Elle, borders on the sultry. And, her agent insists, her commercial prospects are not suffering from any Japan-bashing. “Americans want Kristi Yamaguchi to succeed,” says Albrecht. Add Yamaguchi’s salary as a headliner on a North American skating tour to her three recent corporate deals (contact lenses, fabrics and a yet-to-be-announced “Kristi product”), and she may already be a seven-figure skater.
Gymnast Scherbo may yet find his niche and his fortune in America. He has a twinkle in his eye, a keen intelligence and wit that come through his halting English and a Hollywood manager who looks at Vitali and sees an “early Mickey Rooney .” Scherbo, who knows not from Mickey Rooney, can envision himself more comfortably as “maybe the next Schwarzenegger.” Then again, perhaps Vitaly should be reminded just how many people live in India.
