Some of these high-profile athletes truly understand what they are doing..... but most are sheep, regurgitating what they themselves have been spoon fed by the media. Just dumb jocks imitating what popular culture is offering at the moment.
The real power-players in this discussion are the leagues, owners, advertisers and other actual shot callers. They are promoting these themes on a much larger scale, with much more impact than their puppets. The athletes are simply the tools used to mainline this stuff to the masses. The actual power brokers are the people truly responsible for this phenomenon.