After the Olympics are over, Michael Phelps will continue his busy schedule obligations with endorsement deals with Speedo, Omega, and Kellogg's, estimated to pay him $5 million per year. Shawn Johnson will shill for Coca-Cola, among others, and get paid around $1 million.

Irving Saladino, who similarly took the gold (in the long jump) for Panama—its first in history—will get a new sports complex named for him, while Cable & Wireless and Fiesta Casino have launched campaigns using his image, and several presidential candidates—it's an election year in Panama, too—scrambled to put together television ads congratulating Saladino. None of this, however, translates into endorsement bucks for the 24-year-old. And his sponsor, Nike, has no promotional plans for the athlete.

It's not an unusual story, experts say. Medalists from smaller countries have a much harder time spinning Olympic gold into marketing gold—even those who have big corporate sponsors. Because there is little precedent for deals outside the U.S., they are rarely discussed, and the market for foreign athletes, save for a few breakouts such as, possibly, Jamaica's Usain Bolt, is limited in the U.S. But with greater attention to marketing deals, that could change.

"Is Irving ripe for marketing purposes? I am totally convinced he is," says Ariel Meilij, a spokesperson for Nike Panama, via email. "But not much has been done around him." Part of the problem, Meilij explains, is that the Panama office lacks a marketing budget—its main focus is regional sales.

Further complicating the potential for an endorsement is the nature of Saladino's relationship to Nike. For reasons even Meilij doesn't seem to understand, the owner of Irving's sponsorship contract is not Nike Panama, but Nike Holland—Meilij isn't clear on what the terms and obligations of it are.

If chances to cash in at home are slim for athletes like Saladino, the possibility of getting a U.S. endorsement are practically one in a million. "The first thing is the sport," says Marc Ippolito, president of the sports marketing agency Burns Entertainment & Sports. "Everyone knows Phelps—if you look at the names of people who have won in swimming over the years, they're always able to capitalize. But I can guarantee nine out of 10 people can't tell you who's competing in shotput. The sport dictates how much airtime each athlete is getting—and the airtime you're getting is a huge part of it." As for someone like Saladino, he says, "The only way I can see someone like that being in a U.S. commercial would be in a Nike montage."

Ippolito is referring to the spot titled "Courage" that Nike released just before the Games got underway. The commercial splices shots of historical greats like Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong with footage of athletes from Portugal, South Africa, and Afghanistan. Thirty-one athletes are crammed into the minute-long ad, so their screen time is fleeting. Still, spots like "Courage"—and Adidas' recent "Gold Is Never a Given" print campaign, which featured Ethiopian runner Haile Gebreselassie—signal that an openness to a global aesthetic in ads is on the rise, only just not with individuals. "It works in a limited time, like during the Olympics," says Ippolito. "But it's not about the people in the commercial, it's about the overall feel and them trying to pull at your heartstrings."

Of course, it's not impossible for a big star from a tiny country to enchant international ad execs. Ippolito recalls the Jamaican bobsled team from the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary; the bobsledders shilled for Fiat and several beverage companies before inspiring the 1993 Disney film Cool Runnings. So does Ippolito see anyone in Beijing who could sell Stateside? "I could see Usain Bolt having some impact in the U.S.," he says. Bolt is the Jamaican sprinter who won gold and set new world records in both the men's 100-meter and 200-meter races. He is sponsored by Puma. "He's running in premiere races, he's getting compared to Carl Lewis, he's got the personality," says Ippolito. "And come on—Bolt. He's got the name."