Aaron Smith, a business professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia, said that athlete sponsorships have "inflated immensely" with bodybuilders over the past few years.
Today's sports nutrition industry provides an enormous market for companies to get a slice of the action, he says.
Winston Roberts, a former competitive bodybuilder and director at the Ontario Physique Association, says social media has helped the bodybuilding scene widen its appeal and become more socially acceptable over the years.
Roberts adds that there was a time between the late 1990s and mid 2000s when the industry was on the decline and "needed some reinvigorating."
But today, a small bodybuilding event can attract 600 to 700 audience members and 150 to 200 competitors. The Toronto Pro SuperShow, which hosts a number of professional and amateur bodybuilding events, including Canada's largest fitness convention, draws about 15,000 audience members each year.
"It's really huge... we never had numbers like that back in the day," he said.
