Roger Federer, The Businessman
We all know Roger Federer, the tennis star. Even people who don’t watch tennis would know the name. He is to tennis what Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo might be to Football. He has won 20 Grands Slams in his illustrious career, now standing behind only long-time competitors Novak Djokovic (23) and Rafael Nadal (22).
If you do want to watch him in his element, watch this video here.
Now let’s come to the topic we’re interested in, the finances.
Federer is the only tennis player to have earned more than $1 billion. But his prize winnings amount to “only” around $130 million. So, he has earned more than 80% of the money off the court. Let’s break that down.
He has sponsorship deals with leading brands from around the world and across various industries. The top names in this list are Rolex, Merccedes-Benz and Credit Suisse. In fact, back in 2016, Celebrity Net Worth reported that 10 different sponsors were paying Federer a total of $45 million a year, including Nike who were paying him $10 million.
If you are a sucker for crazy stories, here is one. In 2018, Federer overtook everybody else and had the most Grand Slams in history at that point. He was at the top of the tennis world. So he asked Nike to double his payout to $20 million per year. But, Nike couldn’t do so since they already had a loaded roster of tennis stars like Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal. So Federer left Nike and signed a 10-year $300 million deal with Uniqlo. Under the contract, he could retire at any point during the 10 years and still get paid the same amount. Talk about star power!
Moreover, this deal only included apparel and not shoes. So Federer joined hands with a company named On Running in 2019, and became the brand ambassador for them for a 3% stake/ownership in the company. The company then went public in 2021 at a $10 billion valuation, which meant Federer’s stake in the company stood at a whopping $300 million. So leaving the $10 million deal with Nike, actually led to him earning $600 million.
In 2013, he also co-founded a player management agency called Team8 with his agent Tony Godsick. Their most notable creation is the Laver Cup. It is an international men’s team tournament played between “Team Europe” and “Team World”. The teams consist of the best players from Europe and the rest of the world respectively, hence garnering major attention from both sponsors and audiences.
Federer’s net worth currently stands between $500-$600 million. It is lesser than the $1 billion earnings number due to taxes and other expenses. But he is well on his way to becoming the fourth sports billionaire after basketball stars Michael Jordan and Lebron James and golf legend Tiger Woods.
Federer’s exploits both on and off the court are truly impressive. He took himself from a bad position in 2018 and converted that into an unthinkable opportunity. Converting problems to opportunities, something we all can learn from him.
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