A rant and link here for those who are interested. I especially like Dan’s comment on humanity at the end. They only got nicer because someone made them.
Interesting.
[size=2]*edited link.[/size]
It makes a lot of sense, really. Get any big organization that’s known widely in a target market to say they use your product and the hero worship kicks in. Doesn’t seem any stranger to me than buying a brand of cereal because some athlete’s picture is on it. In fact, it’s a bit more logical as the person involved is touting a product that is directly and intimately related to what they’re known for. A lot of athletes end up touting products that are only tangentially related.
Just part of the evolution of “games as sport” as society begins to come up with newer, more relevant definitions of celebrity. (Although there are miles and miles between the type of celebrity linked and the type that goes mainstream - but so was the case 15 or so years ago for, say, Skateboarding and extreme sports.)