MLB and Player Sponsorships, a Conflict of Interest?

MLB and its players have enjoyed paid sponsorships and endorsements for as long as we could remember. What if these sponsorships presented MLB and its players with a conflict of interest?

One of many sponsorships MLB has is with Gatorade. This company, like many others, has been really effective at selling their products using ballplayers to be the face of certain products.

Have you ever watched a commercial for a product – such as the one below – and felt a sudden urge to hop in your car, drive to the local 7-11, and spend your hard earned money just to get one for yourself?

What if you were to find out that the product in question, like many other products, contains a substance that is banned by MLB?

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Hate to break it to you folks, but it happens every single day.

A week ago, WTTSPOD reported on a story involving one of MLB’s banned substances. The “substance” in question is called insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1).

Natural IGF-1 is a hormone that is natural occurring.  In humans, It is made when the pituitary gland produces growth hormone. The growth hormone is then delivered to the liver where it is transformed into IGF-1.

A quick search on Google and you’ll come across a piece by SelfHacked that breaks down the good and the bad of IGF-1. What stands out most – aside from the fact that IGF-1 is naturally produced within the human body – is that an increased intake of blueberries, cinnamon, red meat, milk, even dried plums among other things increases your levels of IGF-1.

What does this all mean?

Well, it means that MLB and many of its players accept paid sponsorships and endorsements from companies that sell products that contain a banned substance.

A quick look at the ingredients in Gatorade’s Whey Protein Bar (pictured below) shows that the product “contains high quality milk.” Milk, as stated before, is rich in IGF-1.

Corey Seager’s tweets (below) regularly features Muscle Milk products.

Cody Bellinger also tweets quite often. Many of them feature MET Rx products, like this one:

Need I say more about why this might be a conflict of interest for MLB and its players?

What’s the big deal?

There really isn’t anything wrong with Bryce Harper eating a whey protein bar produced by Gatorade, or with Corey Seager drinking Muscle Milk, or with Cody Bellinger being the face of MET Rx’s whey protein bar. The problem is that professional sports and anti-doping agencies conflate IGF-1 – in all all its forms (natural and synthetic) – with the likes of anabolic steroids.

This is a conflict of interest that is easily avoidable, and perhaps that is the reason why it is swept under the rug.

It is a problem, however, because natural IGF-1 does after all appear on the banned substance list. Technically, this means:

• No milk
• No red meat
• No sleep
• No blueberries
• No cinnamon
• No dried plum
• No liver

Those are just a few items that contain natural IGF-1.

Do you see the problem here?

Manny Gómez is an up and coming investigative reporter and founder of wttspod.com.

Contact: Twitter or email