Photo: Wenn
The inescapable sight of sportsmen wearing Beats by Dre headphones before a game is set to change after the NFL in the US have banned players wearing them.
No longer will American football players be permitted to wear the headphones ahead of games following a massive sponsoship deal with Bose. According to Sporting News' Jasmine Watkins, the league has said they will prohibit any headphone use other than Bose while they are on camera.
Watkins explains "The restriction of other headphone usage includes preseason training camps, practice sessions, game day, postgame interviews, and it remains in place until 90 minutes after the game has ended."
This may make things complicated for a number of players, such as San Francisco 49ers Colin Kaepernick and Seattle Seahawks Richard Sherman as both have appeared in Beats By Dre commercials.
Below: See Richard Sherman in the Beats by Dre commerical
Interestingly at the moment the Premier League doesn't have an official commercial technology partner but it would be intriguing to see if something similar could happen in the UK - when the sums of money involved, we wouldn't bet against something happening on this side of the Atlantic by next season.
This year Dr Dre topped the list of the highest paid acts in hip-hop, thanks to his sale of Beats Audio to Apple earlier this year.
Dre tops Forbes magazine's annual Hip-Hop Cash Kings ranking the most financially successful performers in rap. Apple shelled out $3 billion to acquire Beats Audio, with Dre quick to label himself hip-hops first billionaire. The rapper can count his pretax earnings at $620 million.
Dre's total is the highest annual earnings of any star ever evaluated by Forbes with his total topping the earnings of all 24 other artists on the list combined. DJ Khaled, who comes in at number 20 with $7 million told Forbes, “It’s safe to say headphones is a good business”.
The entire list with each artist's figures is below:
1. Dr. Dre – $620 million
2. Jay Z – $60 million and Diddy – $60 million
2. Diddy – $60 million
4. Drake – $33 million
5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – $32 million
6. Kanye West – $30 million
7. Birdman – $24 million
8. Lil Wayne – $23 million
9. Pharrell Williams – $22 million
10. Eminem – $18 million
11. Nicki Minaj – $14 million
12. Wiz Khalifa – $13 million
13. Pitbull – $12 million
14. Snoop Dogg – $10 million
15. Kendrick Lamar – $9 million
16. Ludacris – $8 million
16. Tech N9ne – $8 million
16. Swizz Beatz – $8 million
16. 50 Cent – $8 million
20. Rick Ross – $7 million
20. J. Cole – $7 million
20. DJ Khaled – $7 million
20. Lil Jon – $7 million
20. Mac Miller – $7 million
