Trying to get some of the discussion in the other thread in here. Sorry to “pick” on you @JBOMBER, but your post had a lot of history in it so it seemed a good one to pull across.
Edit: Rats, this doesn’t appear to have worked.
I think there is a difference if it is a general employee, versus one who is probably paid a marketing wage (if its anything like the AFL). If you’ve taken money from someone to promote their product, and be the face of that product, then I don’t think the person employing you is out of bounds expecting you to be civil to all of the potential customers. To not embarrass them.
It gets more interesting if he’s not paid an explicit marketing allowance. To what degree are sportsmen now marketers versus their job just being playing on the weekend and turning up for training? Given I bet their contracts contain heaps of clauses around being available for journalists, promotional shoots etc., I suspect even a standard contract would be deemed as having some element of marketing.