This was the first computer game with celebrity endorsements.
The concept was created by Hawkins based on his recollections of the 60's era "One on One" televised sports contests, sponsored by hair tonic Vitalis.
This game became successful on the Commodore 64, where its complicated copy-protection became famous not only with hackers intent on breaking it, but with users who had to listen to it tear their old Behemoth 1541 floppy drives a new one. The PC copy protection was similarly legendary--96 sector headers on track 15 took a long time to figure out and duplicate.