
This week, I walked down memory lane and searched out Jockey’s fantastic ads in the ’70s and ’80s. I noticed that they had a lot of star athletes strip down to their undies for their ads. I’m talking Pete Rose, Jim Palmer, and more. We needed this today to get our most prominent sports stars in some amazing undies in an ad for all to see.
I grew up during the Jim Palmer ads. It amazed me that this major MLB pitcher is standing in a pair of bikinis, and no one ever called him gay, questioned his manhood, or gave him any flack about posing. The kicker is these ads appeared in mainstream magazines; the ones I always saw were in People magazine. A magazine not known for its men’s underwear ads. The only place I saw men’s underwear advertisements that were “sexy” was the workout magazines. Magazines such as Exercise for men only and Men’s Work out.

One ad, in particular, got me thinking about why we don’t have sports stars in underwear ads. The ad I saw had football, baseball, and hockey stars (see above). It’s not a very good scan of the advertisement, so I apologize you can’t read it. This got me thinking about what athletes we should have as underwear models/spokespeople. I’m not talking like Tim Tebow, who never wore underwear when he was Jockey’s spokesperson.
Since the 70s/80s, we have had changes in our society. More straight guys are getting into undies, which is a fantastic thing! However, more guys get labeled gay for wearing bikinis and thongs. I’m almost positive that if we had sports stars in bikinis, we’d hear the “See, I knew he was gay.” Or, “I didn’t know (insert name) was gay.’ On the other hand, a series like this will help show that mainstream underwear isn’t gay or straight. And it’s ok to wear something that is form-fitting and shows off your manly goods.
I am not the most sports-minded guy; I know this shocks many of you! There are a few guys I initially thought of, like Gus Kenworthy, Tom Daily, and such. We all know the hot athletes, but I had to google hot NFL and MLB players. Here are a few of the names I came up with for guys who would be awesome in undies. They are:
- Evan McPherson – NFL player
- Gus Kenworthy – Olympic Snowboarder
- Tom Daily – Olympic Diver
- James McCann – MLB player
- James McCann – MLB player
- Julian Edelman – NFL Player
- Julian Edelman – NFL Player
- Reggie Bush – NFL Player
- J.J Watt – NFL Player
- Mychal Kendricks – NFL Player
- Chris Young – MLB PLayer
- Nathan Chen – Figure Skater
- Chris Kinney – Olympic Bobsledder
- Joey Mantia – Olympic Speed Skater
This list is not the end-all-be-all list of guys. Many of our readers are sports fans and can suggest more guys for the list. I would love to hear who you think should model undies. To do this, I have created a poll to add your favorite athletes in any sport that you think would look good in undies.