There is enormous pressure on the home athletes at the London Games to perform to the best of their ability and land a gold medal.  Victoria Pendleton, Phillips Idowu, Bradley Wiggins and Andy Murray will all be in the spotlight but arguably the most likely to be seen as the Golden Girl of the games is heptathlete Jessica Ennis.
Despite missing the Beijing Games through injury, Ennis claimed the 2009 World Championship in her multi disciplined sport and her good looks, engaging personality and hard work on and off the track have put her to the top of most sponsor’s wish lists.
The effort that needs to go into a top athlete is evidenced by Ennis’ website which should be a model for how any sporting star wishing to build their brand should be.
Weekly video updates, integrated social media, access to the star herself and every scrap of information you might want to know are available in a well presented site that also focuses strongly on her South Yorkshire roots.
This is a long way from the amateur ideal and Corinthian spirit of the original modern games but sport is the world’s greatest interest at the moment and growing stronger all the time so the rewards available to those who can be champions in the arena and stars outside of it can command a high price.
Ennis has already secured the highest value personal endorsement on Team GB from Adidas, valued at £320,000 (€410,000) this year alone and her total endorsements from this, from Omega watches, Olay, Jaguar, Powerade, BP, British Airways and Aviva will top £1 million (€1.28 million).
She will feature on the largest ad around the games with British Airways having painted a 53×75 metre image of her on the flight path into Heathrow alongside the twitter hash tag #homeadvantage.
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