Woods is ranked No. 12 on The Marketing Arm’s Davie-Brown Index, which measures U.S. awareness of about 2,800 celebrities. James, a two-time National Basketball Association MVP, is No. 373, while Brady, a two-time NFL MVP, is No. 382. Rabil didn’t make the list.
Shawn Bryant, a former NBA executive who specialized in player marketing, said it will be hard for Rabil to approach the popularity of snowboarder Shaun White, who benefits from the Olympics and X Games exposure.
Influential Followers
“He certainly has a tough road to that kind of breakout success,” Bryant said. He added that the sport’s influential followers, including Sean Bratches, ESPN’s executive vice president of sales & marketing and a member of the Rochester Institute of Technology Sports Hall of Fame for lacrosse, may help Rabil gain attention.
Rabil, who majored in political science and minored in entrepreneurship and management, took out his mobile phone to display a photograph from another well-known booster.
Shot at an airport in Costa Rica, it shows three-time Super Bowl winning coach Bill Belichick of the Patriots wearing a shirt from the Rabil collection, with a man in the background in a Rabil jersey.
“Marketing isn’t my thing, but I have no problem aligning myself with Paul Rabil on anything,” Belichick, who played lacrosse at Wesleyan University and whose daughter, Amanda, is an assistant for the Ohio State women’s team, said in an interview.
Lacrosse Network
Rabil has lacrosse pals in finance, including Kumin and Steven Mitchell of SAC; former Hopkins roommate Stephen Peyser of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.; and Ted Goldthorpe, chief executive of Apollo Management Holdings.
He is a partner with five other former college athletes in Endurance Companies, a holding company.