Gone are the days when Olympians gracing a Wheaties box or dominating a top-tier magazine’s cover story are considered groundbreaking.

With technological advancement comes exposure — and with that attention comes transparency into the lives of today’s biggest international athletes, further piquing the masses’ interest.

The celebrity landscape has changed dramatically.

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For better or worse, the Rio Summer Olympics now look a lot like a Hollywood casting audition — by no means discounting the national pride aspect.

While athletic ability, stiff competition, and stories of triumph have been Rio’s focal point, the poor sportsmanship and personal drama are far from being ignored. And this fact has managed to increasingly catapult some of the Games’ finest into pop culture stardom.

On the upper echelon of the Popularity Games curve sits Michael Phelps, 31. While we’re blown away by his 23 gold medals, those will never be his entire story. The Baltimore native’s checkered past, including a plethora of trysts and several addiction battles, still manages to tarnish his many feats.

Same with fellow swimmer Ryan Lochte, 32, who is also known for his out-of-water presence. He’s a cocky swimmer with a failed reality show and 10-plus notable TV appearances. The 12-time medal winner, mostly known for his ab-tastic appearance and own lady-swooning ways, was the bi-product for a 2012 Seth MacFarlane “SNL” parody. However, his latest after-hours Olympic Village debacle easily takes the cake — fabricating a Rio robbery story which blew up into an international incident.

Good or bad, the public’s initial perception of the two swimmers is here to stay. Nonetheless, their careers — on dry land — have been heavily monetizing from it.

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Phelps is now engaged to former Miss California USA Nicole Johnson. The two briefly called it quits in 2009 and now have baby son Boomer together.

Lochte has apparently settled down with former Playboy model Kayla Rae Reid — or so it seems from social media. Phelps and Lochte are just two of the several names that have been thrust into mainstream media’s money-making machine.

So the question is: Is it okay for Olympic athletes to become big stars? They already are, of course, from the Games. But we mean Hollywood stars. While the answer is debatable, the beginnings of its evolution can be traced back some 84 years ago.

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Long before society became caught up in the throes of social media, there were a small number of athletes who blurred the lines between competition and entertainment.

Related: Blame it on Rio

Five-time gold medal-winning Johnny Weissmuller, an Austro-Hungarian, became the first “Tarzan” (1932). Shortly after, the role was filled by fellow swimmer — from the U.S. — Buster Crabbe for “King of the Jungle” (1933). Later, American weightlifter Harold Sakata had roles in 19 films, including James Bond’s “Goldfinger,” following his 1948 silver medal win.

Fast forwarding to the ’70s, Bruce Jenner won the Olympic decathlon title in ’76. Ultimately he wound up on reality TV as part of the Kardashian empire. Although a handful of Olympians made the TV rounds in the ’80s, including gymnast Mary Lou Retton’s three TV spots, the 1990s universal-appeal field was pretty much barren.

Nowadays, the celebrity landscape has changed dramatically — it now includes reality TV and in-demand social media profiles.

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ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” alone has drastically impacted Olympian exposure — using almost as many of them as contestants (12) as it has earned Emmys (14). The program is notorious for attempting to patch up the careers of slumping C-list actors — the Ian Zierings and Alfonso Ribeiros — but has also doubled to extend the shelf lives of several athletes — Hope Solo, Evan Lysacek, and Monica Seles, to name a few.

“DWTS” is undoubtedly not the end-all, be-all of Olympians-turned-celebrities — but its healthy prime-time viewership leaves little to the imagination of what America wants to see.

With the 2016 Games coming to a close and the TV platform (cable, network, streaming) expanding, one has to wonder what lies ahead for this year’s potential celebrities in the making — e.g., Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky. Only time will truly tell. But one good place to look: the dance floor.