Erin Andrews, who signed an endorsement deal with Reebok last month, is not the only ESPN personality or member of its “College GameDay” team to have a contract with a major shoe company.

Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso have deals with Nike that Corso described as a joint arrangement that largely involves speaking engagements for the athletic shoe and apparel company.

– Richard Sandomir, New York Times.

Sandomir goes on to investigate whether the endorsement deals present conflicts of interest for the ESPN personalities. Honestly I can’t imagine it could really be that big a deal unless, while discussing highlights of Cam Newton running all over the SEC, Lee Corso started yelling, “It’s gotta be the shoes!” or something.

The big issue here is that I still have to pay for my own shoes like some sort of chump and/or sucker. I’ll have you know, Nike, that I keep a sports and sandwich blog of moderate repute and host a modestly regarded web-based baseball video series. Also, since we’re on the topic, Nike, I never wear your sneakers because they don’t fit me right. So either you make the Air Ted Bergs custom-fitted to my feet or I take my talents to Saucony.

Speaking of: Saucony, we can do this right now. I’ve been wearing your Jazz sneakers almost exclusively in all non-athletic sneaker-requiring situations since the turn of the Millenium. And now they’re hard to find at the mall and I have to order them at Zappos. That’s the type of commitment to your product that should be rewarded with an endorsement deal, I think. Just send me free sneakers and I’ll tell everyone how comfortable they are, and how they help make my size-13 feel look at least vaguely proportional to my 5’10” frame.

Same goes for you, Dr. Marten. I know your monopoly on the goth-kid market crumbled sometime in the early 1990s, but I’ve been wearing your oxfords to work since I stopped having jobs at which it was acceptable to wear Sauconys. We can make this happen. I am the host of the Baseball Show for cryin’ out loud! I WEAR YOUR SHOES WHILE I TALK TO CERRONE ON SKYPE! That’s a landmark sponsorship opportunity.

I never made a conscious decision to just keep buying the same shoes once a year every year, it just kind of happened. At some point in the late 1970s my dad apparently did the same thing.