Sponsors of the Olympics are hiring athletes

  Sponsors of 2016 are taking another step to prove its commitment to competition and marry their brands forever with the Olympic rings: are hiring athletes.

The auditing firm and professional services EY plans to hire nine Olympians after the end of the competition and their names will be revealed at the time.

Visa, official business card and payment systems Olympics, is running an ad on their website: "We need help: we are hiring Olympic and Paralympic athletes in Visa".

Companies insist that the initiatives are more than simple advertising plays and actually have an important purpose.

Unlike renowned figures like Simone Biles and Michael Phelps, many Olympic athletes have difficulties to save money over their sporting lives and have few ways to traditional careers, except for jobs as coach and the media.

The initiatives also make Visa and EY, formerly known as Ernst & Young, good in the picture, according to Bob Dorfman, sports marketing expert at Baker Street Advertising in San Francisco.

"This is a great history of public relations," Dorfman said by telephone. "In addition to all other existing marketing avenues - TV, social networks, point of sale, logos on the uniforms - I think this is a great way to promote goodwill for your brand."

Beth Brooke-Marciniak, global vice president of public policy EY says that the transition from careers is even more difficult for women athletes, who rarely earn as much as their male counterparts and reach the end of their professional sports lives without able to make a sock along the way.

Get in the game to help them in the transition is usually a double victory, according to Brooke-Marciniak, who was basketball player at Purdue University, USA.

"Women do not earn any money in the sport, it's amazing," she said. "Women have no choice but to change course. They need to have a next chapter. "

Women who hires the company will go to the advisory division, in functions similar to entry-level jobs for which hires graduates in major colleges and universities, according to Brooke-Marciniak.

On the one hand focus specifically in the Olympic women athletes is a novelty, Wall Street firms and other parties are noticing for some time that athletes are good employees.

Carly Drum-O'Neill, who founded a unit focused on athletes in the pursuit of business executives Drum Associates, said the success in the sport often goes hand in hand with the desire to succeed and with the kind of confidence that allows large sellers to command a team.

"These Olympians easily proved that they have the essential skills that make you succeed in the working world today," said Drum-O'Neill, former tennis player from Pennsylvania State University, USA.