http://www.explore-mag.com/Gadds_Truth_An_Honest_Look_at_Athletic_Sponsorship

There are athletes getting serious sponsorship dollars based not
on their performance, but simply on their social media clout. Social media isn’t
about chronicling performance for sponsors; it is, itself, performance. It’s now
not necessarily what you have done as an athlete, but how many people care
enough about what you’re doing to follow you. Which brings up some interesting
questions about what we put into our feeds, and what the public and sponsors
ultimately want to see.

Several popular “climber feeds” on Instagram are from sponsored young women who
tend to post a lot of pictures of themselves climbing with very little clothing
on. Beyond the fact that there is usually a rock in the picture (often it’s just
some plastic holds), there is little to differentiate these shots from the Kim
Kardashian butt-shot that recently “broke the Internet.” In an age where we’re
all selling ourselves, putting skin in the pic short-circuits selling our
accomplishments and distils it down to literally selling our image. Is this the
brand image their sponsors want? In a visual age, where the visuals may be more
important than actually accomplishing anything, the answer sponsors have given
with their dollars—and us with our following eyes—seems to be, “Yes.”