Using both quantitative and qualitative techniques of social research this paper studies the online communication of the most important brands in the sportswear market. The multidimensional theory of communication is the framework of this study, and it outlines four images of the body. In the first section Paolo Dell’Aquila measures the communicative capacity of the 16 websites of the international sportwear brands, and tests the sub-hypothesis that the Communitarian dimension (the letter «I» of Parsons’ Agil schema) has the highest average score; but the findings do not entirely corroborate this sub-hypothesis. In the second section, Giovanna Russo studies four sportswear websites by the phenomenological method and presents a typology of body images. Finally Ivo Germano identifies the transformation of the image of the sporting body in a «bio-brand», which would be the leading concept of the sportswear websites in the field of the communication about health.
Keywords: Sportwear, Online Communication, Body, Brand, Website.