Michael Ventre

Recently Tom Brady of the New England Patriots was seen walking down the street with his latest squeeze, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who used to date Leonardo DiCaprio. It came only weeks after he broke up with his previous girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan.

This isn’t just idle gossip, it’s rapidly moving gossip. A photograph of Brady and Bundchen walking and canoodling appeared on perezhilton.com, one of the most popular gossip sites on the web. There was also a blurb on Page Six of the New York Post late last season that reported Bundchen, “in jeans and T-shirt,” was waiting for Brady outside the locker room after a game. And Brady, with baseball cap pulled down to avoid detection, was seen coming out of her building on a recent morning and hailing a cab while imploring the paparazzi to stay away. “C’mon, guys,” he pleaded.

And you saw the furor when the news came out that Moynahan was pregnant with Brady's child. The story got as much coverage from “People” as it did “Sports Illustrated.”

There was also a report that former USC quarterback Matt Leinart, now of the Arizona Cardinals, was making out with Britney Spears at a Scottsdale nightclub; this apparently was after the Paris Hilton thing. Soccer star David Beckham and his wife Victoria were seen house-hunting around Beverly Hills. The invitation for the wedding of Tony Parker and Eva Longoria was  recently posted on the Internet (July 5, 2007 in Paris, in case anyone needs to clear the date).

Not long ago Mike Piazza had to call a press conference to refute rumors that he was gay. Bill Belichick is the third party in a messy divorce case in New Jersey. Derek Jeter has been spotted with an all-star cast of dates in recent years, including Mariah Carey, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jordana Brewster, Lara Dutta (former Miss Universe) and Vanessa Minnillo. And you could probably recreate a passable version of the ESPYs with the athletes who have been romantically linked to actress Alyssa Milano, including Leinart, Carl Pavano, Brad Penny and Barry Zito.

Are the personal lives of athletes more interesting now than ever before? The pairing of Hollywood and sports is hardly new. Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe caused flashbulbs to pop wherever they went after marrying in 1954. Bo Belinsky courted a bevy of stars in the 1960s, including Ann-Margret and Connie Stevens. Joe Namath didn’t get the nickname “Broadway Joe” because he liked to stay home and read.

Athletes have been stepping into the celebrity realm for many years. But does anyone care? More specifically, do those people who keep a daily eye on the activities of celebrities care about athletes the same way they care about stars in the areas of movies, television, music, modeling, etc.?

“They do by association,” noted Perez Hilton, who has been running his gossip site perezhilton.com since September, 2004. “There are certain athletes who spend a lot of time in Hollywood hanging out with celebrities. As a result they become mainstream stars themselves.”

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Hilton gave examples such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Andy Roddick and Mike Tyson, among others, who register on the celebrity radar almost as significantly as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Lindsay Lohan.

“I am my audience,” Hilton explained of his site, which can probably best be described as “screaming tabloid” in style and approach. “And I care. I care about certain athletes, whichever ones talk to me. I’m interested in Andy Roddick, who used to date Mandy Moore. He’s hot, so that helps. I’m interested in the Williams sisters (Venus and Serena). I’m interested in (figure skater) Johnny Weir, because he’s so flamboyantly fabulous and over the top.

“If they happen to be superstars in their genre, people care about them.”

L.m. Otero / AP file “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria and Spurs guard Tony Parker will be married in July.

One of the chief competitors of perezhilton.com is TMZ.com, launched by Time Warner-AOL and run by managing editor Harvey Levin, a lawyer and former longtime reporter at the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles. TMZ is probably best known recently as having been the outlet that broke the story of the Mel Gibson arrest.

Levin feels that while the topic of athletes crossing over and becoming celebrity fodder in the entertainment realm is nothing new, there definitely is more of it.

“There’s just more media now,” he said. “If you think about the paradigm, it was O.J. Simpson. He went into movies, television commercials. Then he was the subject of the most riveting murder case in memory.

“I think athletes have always been interesting to the public. But there are more opportunities now in the way the media has fragmented and overall has become larger. Different elements of peoples lives are now covered.”