Barry Bonds, soon to break Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record, is taking action after corporate advertisers have shunned him. The 43-year old player has established a licensing company to leverage his bid to become major league baseball’s newest home run king.

He has 18 partners, including apparel manufacturers and a company that sells commemorative coins and expensive, framed photos of the slugger.

Unfortunately, for one of the game’s greatest players ever, corporate advertisers have shunned him.

Other than a baseball trading card deal with the Topps Co. Bonds’ $2 million in estimated off-the-field revenue is driven largely by licensing deals.

It wasn’t always this way. About five years ago Bonds established sponsorship deals with Charles Schwab Corp., Fila, and a restaurant. But all has changed since the steroids controversy erupted in 2003, which triggered a federal investigation that is ongoing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2007 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Professional Athletics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.