Great idea and list. You beat me too it. My site needs an upgrade bad, looking into Woo Themes.

I’ll add some sites to the list: http://www.athleteinteractive.com/ has a few athletes listed, http://www.shaunwhite.com/, and http://web.tigerwoods.com/index.

I think in the past, an athlete generated their income so much from TV related sponsorship (ie, a brand would only care about tv coverage, so having a cool website was not a priority even if they offloaded +$2M to the athlete) that websites were overlooked.

In the past 2 years, a smart athlete should’ve realised the potential of the internet – mostly social media + their personal website – as a really good means to ‘connect’ to their fans on a more personal level than tv advertising ever could. And then, brands in turn should’ve realised they have a much better ‘direct marketing’ alternative that is staggeringly cheaper than tv (which goes to a “wide” audience, but not necessarily the brand’s “target” audience) and get behind athletes who are ALL OVER their online lives/promotion.

Meaning, if you give $100,000 to athlete X who goes on tv and gets a few plugs on a talk-show that’s great. But does it do anything more than ‘brand awareness’ for the sponsor? If you take athlete Y who gets $100,000 to appear on tv as well as create a regulated facebook, myspace and twitter profile as well as updates and responds to comments on his website, then the brand will know that probably 80% of the people who see athlete Y online are genuinely interested in the athlete, the products he promotes and the sports he plays. Much better ‘target audience’ coverage than TV alone!

Its coming … just suprises me that its the smaller athletes who’ve picked this up quicker than the big guys (who should be paying their PR/media teams to do this for them anyhow!!!)

It is my first time here (I passed by from a site u design throw wootheme showcase) As a sports fan (especially football=soccer) I really like the article. I was surprised like you to see famous athlete didn’t invest some money in their website design… i think the design is a factor to keep people visiting you.

Thank you
Mido

Its very hard to ‘capture’ the essence of a person with a website, however that’s more important than ever to do with either an athlete or a band’s website (more so than a business website). Fans of an athlete know that athlete inside out, some of them to an obsessive level, so they will respond positively to a website that personifies the “character and personality” of that particular athlete.

Take http://www.TonyHawk.com for example (#14). Aesthetically and accessibly the website is terrible! However, they ‘capture’ who Tony is so well. Its like an advert for Tony Hawk Pro Skater .. grunge, clutter, trash, skate or die. Perfect!

Its harder than you think for a designer to accomplish, so I praise the ones who do; full-flash or not!

I can only hope she’ll find my website And

PS. I think it’s that she rocks, merely because she’s windsurfing and not working in a Turkish kebab store in Poland somewhere – her website could be a little cooler; it was pretty ‘deep’ in my list.

I hope she will find our comment and come over to YOU by herself.
If not I remind you! Sure!
But is that her webiste rocks? Or she is so awasome?;p.

And Ronaldo. Green one. we were discussing that green websites haven’t happened. And here you go…!!!

Remind me next World Cup event to go and start stalking this Çaĝla Kubat windsurfing girl – haha.