7 Junk Food Brands With Awkwardly Unconvincing Athlete Endorsements

When Peyton Manning joined the Denver Broncos in 2012, he decided to buy 21 Papa John's franchises in Colorado. Now, there's not an NFL game that goes by that isn't inundated with commercials starring both Manning and Papa John himself, John Schnatter.

And other athletes have noticed, too — in a game against the Broncos in September, the Philadelphia Eagles defense yelled "Papa John, Papa John!" to distract Manning as he called an audible.

Jared Fogle has been Subway's lead spokesman since 2000, after he lost 245 pounds on the "Subway Diet" of a six-inch turkey sub for lunch and a veggie foot-long for dinner every day. In 2012, Subway crowned itself "The official Training Restaurant Of Athletes Everywhere."

Its roster has included NFL star Robert Griffin III, the boxer Laila Ali, NBA All-Star Blake Griffin, and Olympians Apollo Ohno and Michael Phelps. Subway's sponsorships of programs like the American Heart Society is certainly admirable, but there's just something strange about associating the processed components of a Tuscan Chicken Melt with a healthy lifestyle.

McDonald's is one of the all-time leaders in endorsements. It even has its own basketball tournament with an exciting history — since 1978, it has been gathering the top high school graduates and pitting them against each other. LeBron James, Dwight Howard, and Kobe Bryant all made splashes in it.

And with this reach comes plenty of commercials with world-class athletes indulging in burgers and fries (though we do like this one about LeBron's love of McNuggets).

Shaq starred in Burger King ads for years, and in 2012 David Beckham signed on to pitch a low-calorie smoothie. The iconic soccer player's role was to use his dreamy looks to seducing people to buy a "handcrafted" sugary drink. BK's also had endorsement deals with the Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera and former UFC champ Anderson Silva.

For KFC's new Go Cup campaign, its agency Draftcb produced an array of ads mimicking videos a customer would take on his or her phone. Among the #HowDoYouKFC ads was one featuring members of the Tempest Freerunning Academy doing crazy parkour moves — with a cup full of fried chicken and potato wedges in one hand. KFC recently removed the video after it was posted for just several days.

Tempest told us that the video was posted without its permission, and that it was test footage for an advertisement the team was still considering.

We don't have access to the video, but we did see it when it still online. Viewers didn't seem to enjoy the association of fried food with remarkable athleticism. An example:

A new low. @TeamTempest have done an advert for KFC. http://t.co/JCj87ETbwV Parkour desperately needs better sponsors http://t.co/ADCNB7ycGU

— Andy Day (@kiell) January 5, 2014

LeBron James inked a deal with Bubblicious bubble gum back in 2005, and even got his own flavor: Lebron's Lightning Lemonade.

Here are our picks for the worst ads of 2013 >>