Celebrities stand, argues Moeran, a

Celebrities stand, argues Moeran, at the centre of the intersection between commerce and culture, mediating between the public's desires, needs, wishes and aspirations, and the patterns of economic production and consumption, which both responds to and helps create those desires and needs. The list of examples of the richly rewarded individuals at the top of the celebrity hierarchy, because of their high visibility across all celebrity sectors — models, actors, sports stars, fashion designers — is long and growing; just to pick one, Tiger Woods is reported as having become, in 2006, the first athlete to earn more than US$100 million in one year, of which $90 million was earned in endorsements and appearances, as opposed to US$10 million for playing golf (Lind 2007: 52), and he was instru-mental in Nike's construction of a $650 million golf business. As Joshua Gamson observes: as sales aids, celebrities are most useful if they can draw attention regardless of the particular context in which they appear. Name recognition in itself is critical for commerce. In fact, the less attached a name is to a context, the more easily it transfers to new markets. (2007: 150)