grapplingstars.com, femcompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com fciwomenswrestling2.com articles, pexels.com-photo Retha-Ferguson.
Delayed gratification can blossom into supreme satisfaction when your years of hard work translates into bountiful endorsements. The good news is that more and more of today’s female professional athletes are feeling very financially satisfied.
Part of the green love is due to the increasing appetite of males to watch female sports.
As reported on October 8, 2018 at japantimes.co.jp, “Male sports fans make up more than half of the group of people with an interest in women’s sports, according to a report published Thursday by analysts Nielsen Sports.
The report found that 84 percent of general sports fans in eight key markets around the world, including the United States and Britain, have an interest in women’s sports, and that 51 percent of those are male.”
The Women’s European Championship in 2017 attracted a television audience of 150 million, according to Nielsen.
Manufacturers are beginning to come around to the idea that female sports can pull in huge audiences and plenty of potential customers.
One of the young women who recently transitioned from an emerging star to a super star after her 2018 U.S. Open victory is Japan’s Naomi Osaka.
In March of 2018, Naomi became the first Japanese woman to win the Indian Wells Masters in California. A Premier Mandatory tournament, Indian Wells is widely considered the second biggest event in American tennis, right behind the U.S. Open Grand Slam.
Ms. Osaka reached a career-high Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) ranking of No. 4 in the world, which she achieved in October 2018 after winning the U.S. Open. Previously she won two titles and reached four finals on the WTA Tour.
She first came to prominence at the age of sixteen when she defeated former US Open champion Samantha Stosur at the 2014 Bank of the West Classic, which was her first time in the main draw of a WTA tournament.
Naomi’s has an aggressive playing style, with a powerful serve that can reach 125 miles per hour.
After the best female tennis players in the world descended on New York City to compete at the 2018 U.S. Open, with Naomi as the last woman standing, she received $3.8 million as the women’s singles champ, the richest purse in women’s tennis history.
A few days after her upset victory over the American favorite in Serena Williams, Naomi was reported to have signed an $8.5 million endorsement deal with Adidas, the largest deal the sports brand has ever offered a female athlete, according to SB Nation.
Adidas is a multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany.
It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike.
There is wide recognition that foreign inhabitants particularly value the high quality of life and security that Herzogenaurach offers.
While Germany’s Bavaria has a reputation for smooth beer festivals, lederhosen and conservative politics, Nike’s home town of Portland, USA is a city of 600,000 that prides itself on its liberal values and environmental awareness, as well as a proliferation of cool trendy eateries and microbreweries.
“If you have market power like Nike, you can set terms that are much tougher because athletes value the endorsement of Nike – it means as much to them as it does to the company.”… John Quelch
Who better to be a brand ambassador than the now globally well-loved Naomi Osaka due in part to her exceptional tennis accomplishments along with her beauty, humility, family ties and sense of humor?
Adidas has an attracting personality as well.
At their site adidas-group.com they smile, “adidas has its roots in Germany but we are a truly global company. Around the world we employ nearly 57,000 people. Employees from about 100 nations are working at our global HQ in Herzogenaurach, Germany – the ‘World of Sports’.
Every year we produce over 900 million sports and sports lifestyle products with independent manufacturing partners worldwide. In 2017 we generated sales of € 21.218 billion. These numbers alone can easily suggest that adidas is quite a large and also multifaceted organization. True. But we keep things simple, lean and fast. And we will use this approach now to give an overview of what our company is all about.”
Sounds good to us.
This notion that female athletes are finally getting their due with lucrative endorsements sounds even better.
There was more good news for Naomi.
In addition to her spectacular deal with Adidas, Naomi also signed a three-year deal with Japanese carmaker Nissan. As part of the Nissan partnership, Naomi will appear in global promotions and advertising for the car company.
Her other endorsement partnerships include Nissin Foods and watchmaker Citizen.
Naomi’s contemporaries are sharing in the wealth as well.
In the broader Asian market tennis player Li Na is the most successful Asian tennis player ever having won seven WTA singles titles. Li elevated to stardom after she won the 2011 French Open singles title. The win made her the first and only Grand Slam singles champion from an Asian country.
Li has endorsements with Rolex, Nike, Häagen-Dazs, Mercedes-Benz, Taikang Life, Samsung and Babolat.
Serena Williams has more than a dozen sponsors, including Nike, Intel, Audemars Piguet, JPMorgan Chase, Lincoln, Gatorade and Beats. Male or female, only 16 other athletes on the planet made more than Serena over the past 12 months from endorsements, and she made twice as much off the court as any other female athlete.
Things are improving for women in other sports as well.
The informative site bradenton.com shares, “The landscape for women’s team sports has changed dramatically over the past few years, creating the potential to increase the cost of broadcasting rights and the pay of the athletes themselves. While tennis and golf have led the way for decades in the professionalization and commercialization of women’s sports, their counterparts in team sports have lagged far behind despite some exceptions, such as with soccer in the United States.”
According to forbes.com, “Rounding out the top five are three more from the world of tennis in Sloane Stephens ($11.2 million), Garbiñe Muguruza ($11 million) and Sharapova ($10.5 million). The only non-tennis players in the top 10 are Indian badminton star P.V. Sindhu ($8.5 million) and racing’s Patrick ($7.5 million).”
Though it has been some time in coming, stellar endorsements for popular female sports stars are serving up lots of green on a silver platter.
~ ~
https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/endorsement
https://www.bradenton.com/news/business/article219477195.html
http://opendorse.com/blog/top-10-athlete-endorsement-earners-by-gender/
https://www.gobankingrates.com/making-money/wealth/biggest-sports-endorsement-deals/
https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/naomi-osaka-s-scores-nissan-endorsement-deal/314926/
