A company wants to honor one of the greatest athletes in history... and use his image to improve their business... and they've determined that they can pay him X millions because using the athlete's image will make them X + Y million... and said athlete is happy to help them while collecting a generous salary for the use of his image and a few minutes of modeling for a photographer...
And you basically equate this to prostitution? Once upon a time, this kind of thing was called "advertising". The advertiser was happy, the model was happy, and the consumer was happy to see the famous hero. It's so good that you and Rebecca are here to tell us how horrible they all are for engaging in simple commerce.
Actually, no, I wasn't, but in retrospect I do see how the wording could've been better.
I did mean his image not himself, literally.