With all the attention being paid to Toronto Maple Leaf Jiri Tlusty's intimate photos being splashed all over the Internet, it's clear we've entered a new era in the relationship professional athletes have with the media and with sports fans. In 2007, pro athletes can no longer expect their personal lives to remain private – especially if they engage in salacious behaviour.

In a sense, all of us have to be careful about how and where we allow ourselves to be photographed or videotaped these days. That photo of you drinking straight from the tap at a keg party could get you fired or keep you from getting hired if the company feels like it casts them in a bad light. You might think that what you do outside of the workplace is your business and has nothing to do with your job or the company you work for – but chances are your employer doesn't feel the same way.

Pro athletes are on their own level in terms of being full-time representatives of their employers. Their whole identity, in fact, is wrapped up in what they do in their chosen sport. Think of it this way: If somebody wrote a news story about you, would they mention your job in the opening sentence? Meanwhile, if Mats Sundin is in the news, it's as "Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin".

Therein lies the problem – anything that pro athletes do in their off-time is potentially fodder for the modern media machine. Whereas there used to be an understanding between athletes and beat reporters that what happened off the field stayed off the record, the Internet – in particular, sports blogs like Deadspin and social networking sites like Facebook – have shown that anything is fair game now, no matter how much embarrassment it could cause the athlete and his team.

Will Leitch is the editor of Deadspin and has been responsible for exposing many potentially embarrassing (and often hilarious) photos and anecdotes related to pro athletes. Among his greatest hits are: various exhibitions of public drunkenness by Chicago Bears quarterback Kyle Orton, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger living it up in his "Drink like a champion today" t-shirt, and Brady Quinn grinning while he grabs another dude's junk through his pants.

Leitch doesn't see the big deal in showing that pro athletes like to drink and party and act stupid like the rest of us. "I don't think anyone looked at these pictures of Roethlisberger and thought, ‘I can't cheer for this guy anymore,'" he says.

While it's likely that some of these athletes would prefer that photos like these don't receive a mass audience on sites like Deadspin, Leitch doesn't think twice about posting them as long as they bring the funny and aren't likely to cause too much harm.

"If I saw someone doing an illegal activity and I thought they'd cause legitimate harm to their families, that's a different question," says Leitch. "The key question is always: Is it funny?"

As someone who is well-known for and makes a living by showing that pro athletes are human after all, it's not surprising that Leitch gets to the root of the matter in stating who really gets worked up by these kinds of photos.

"I don't think pictures like that hurt the players. I think they hurt the people that want to make money off those players."

If you don't think Leitch is dead on with this statement, think about who is the first to abandon pro athletes whenever they are portrayed in an unflattering light. That's right, it's the sponsors who want us to believe that our athletic heroes are superhuman and you should drink their sports beverage and wear their shoes so you can be just like them.

The truth is, we are just like them – except that they can run faster and jump higher and throw harder and skate better than us. The Internet has proven to be the great equalizer that brings pro athletes down to life-size.

Besides, ask yourself this: If you made millions of dollars per year and had the influence and clout that these guys have, would you stay home all the time just to avoid the possibility of an embarrassing photo? Don't kid yourself. Before you judge Jiri Tlusty or Brady Quinn or Ben Roethlisberger, remind youself, "There but for the grace of Jack Daniels, go I."

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