Most of those players don’t get substantial, big money brand deals anyways. While being currently on tour unabashedly queer guy will likely get you some brand deals in and of itself. We saw that with Carl Nassib. No one knew him. Once he “came out” he got endorsements. If your primary focus is brand deals and/or notoriety, being unabashedly queer would assist with that not hurt. As long as you legitimize your sports career first, you can leverage “coming out”/your queerness to make more money.
That’s why I say being “out” for atheletes (especially male athletes) is way more complicated than being worried about “brand deals”. That’s an aspect that has legit changed in the past decade. A lot of guys simply don’t want to be the “gay mascot” on tour or on their team. They don’t want to deal with constant queer questions. They don’t want that to be what they’re known for. They don’t want people questioning their masculinity. A lot of it is basic male ego, male sociology and masculine insecurities. And yes, there’s still worry of hateful comments or potential homophobic confrontations. While there’s likely many male athletes who have queer dimensions but aren’t fully, confidently homosexual and conventionally “gay” and has dealt with questioning, fluidity, paraphiliacs, internalized phobias, uncertainty about their place in the gender, sexual, affection, romantic, emotion, commitment spectrum. So, they don’t feel the need to be unabashedly “out”.
Y’all keep trying to make it mostly about “brand deals” when there’s a lot of reasons why guys in general, but particularly male atheletes, are not unabashedly queer during their careers.
