20 Terrible Commercials Featuring Athletes

For every Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods who can effectively sell a product, there's a vast multitude of athletes who fail to do so.

Whether it be through poor direction, a poor concept or poor acting, they stumble their way through 30 seconds of misery.

Sometimes it's for the general public's enjoyment; at times, it's just painful for both sides of the coin.

Here are 20 of the worst commercials featuring athletes.

Joe Flacco, Pizza Hut (2009)

Joe Flacco is one of the NFL's up-and-coming quarterbacks, becoming the first signal-caller to provide the Ravens with a respectable amount of offensive firepower since the pre-Brian Billick days in Baltimore.

However, the Delaware product isn't much of an actor, as displayed in this Pizza Hut commercial shown in Maryland.

Joe Flacco, Mother's (2008)

Here's Flacco shilling for a Baltimore-area restaurant, and showing great inflection in his voice at times. (By "great," I mean "none at all.")

Jonathan Ogden, Gebco (2006)

Jonathan Ogden was the Ravens' first NFL Draft pick as a franchise in 1996. In 12 seasons, Ogden was far and away the best tackle in the league, and maybe one of the best offensive linemen to ever play the game.

As it turns out, Ogden is not a Hall of Fame-worthy pitchman.

Carson Palmer, John Morrell (2007)

Where to begin with this commercial?

From the line-reading by Palmer to the referees coming out of the van, this commercial is horrific.

Sammy Sosa, 3DO (2000)

Three words: "It's so real."

Mark McGwire, No Fear (1997)

McGwire has absolutely nothing to do with why this commercial is so bad.

This commercial is terrible because it makes no sense whatsoever.

Various MLB Players, MLB Postseason (2006-07)

Two words: Dane Cook.

Various NFL Players, EA Sports (2002)

"Are you feelin' me?"

No, not really.

Various NFL Players, Diet Coke (1989)

What was with all of the NFL fight songs in the 1980s? A simple YouTube search shows that almost every team decided to make its own copycat version of the "Super Bowl Shuffle."

Not only that, Diet Coke decided it was time to have NFL players rap about their product. Where else can you find Boomer Esiason, Eric Dickerson and Warren Moon spit some rhymes regarding cola?

Boomer Esiason, Reebok (1989)

Here's another Boomer Esiason classic.

This time, he's shilling the brand new Reebok "Pump" shoes and dissing Nike spokesman Bo Jackson in the process.

This wouldn't be the first time Boomer trashed someone.

Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson, Reebok (1992)

In probably the worst ad campaign of the history of sports advertising, Reebok featured decathletes Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson prior to the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.

While the British shoe company hoped the American athletes would bring home a pair of medals, disaster struck when O'Brien failed to make it through the U.S. Olympic Trials and Johnson took home only a bronze in the Olympics.

In addition, these commercials are pretty cheesy to boot.

Marvin Hagler, Diet Coke (1986)

Check out the very brief appearance by boxer "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler in this old commercial.

Something tells me drinking Diet Coke between rounds may not be a great idea.

Various Pittsburgh Penguins, A&L Motors (2008)

At least they dressed well for this commercial.

Various NASCAR Drivers, ESPN (1997)

This isn't the fault of the drivers involved in this commercial, one of five created in 1997 to promote ESPN's NASCAR coverage.

The concept was awful. It's unclear what is being promoted here: ESPN's NASCAR coverage, or the debut of cartoon character Speed Racer.

Jeff Gordon, NBC (2001)

It's 2001. Propelled by casual interest after the death of Dale Earnhardt and a huge television deal, NASCAR explodes into the public eye.

So, when NBC decided to promote the start of their NASCAR coverage, who did they focus on?

Not Jeff Gordon, but Britney Spears, then-Pepsi spokesperson and grand marshal of the 2001 Pepsi 400 in Daytona.

Yikes.

Various UFL Players, UFL (2010)

Second-rate football league, second-rate commercial.

Roger Clemens, Zest (1987)

Back in 1987, I'm sure this commercial wasn't so bad.

Now, Roger Clemens in a soap commercial about being "not fully clean" seems pretty hilarious.

Brian Urlacher, Vitaminwater (2006)

Before Old Spice, Vitaminwater was the king of bizarre commercials.

However, as shown in this commercial with Brian Urlacher, the beverage's attempts at humor misfired.

Kasey Kahne, Vitaminwater (2006)

Here's another Vitaminwater commercial with Kasey Kahne. This is also painfully unfunny.

The Iron Sheik, Toyota (1980s)

Before I receive some criticism for including a professional wrestler on this list, let me note that there is a link to Bleacher Report's wrestling section on the top of this page.

I'll also note that this commercial is just plain awful. What is the Iron Sheik even saying in this commercial?

Where did I go wrong on this list? Comment below.

Ryan Papaserge is a junior journalism/mass communication student at St. Bonaventure University and a writing intern at Bleacher Report.