"Professional athletes have grown more serious about buying art in recent years not unlike other people with new wealth who become collectors. But their fame has helped make them tastemakers, with the ability to help drive interest in contemporary art and particularly in Black artists and other artists of color. Now many sports figures are being courted by galleries, auction houses, art shows and museums. This is a new collector base in the art world, said the art adviser Gardy St. Fleur, who represents several players."
"In September the Miami Heat forward Kevin Love organized one of Sotheby's Contemporary Curated sales in New York, featuring works by Cindy Sherman, Cy Twombly and Ernie Barnes, the Black artist whose joyous painting The Sugar Shack sold at Christie's last year for $15.3 million. During Art Basel Miami next month, St. Fleur said that he intended to visit the art fairs with former N.B.A. players like Deron Williams, Courtney Lee and Amar'e Stoudemire, and that he was arranging a private dinner for some of his athlete clients at a collector's home on Star Island. There are other signs that the influence of athletes who collect art has been growing in recent years."
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