Roger Federer has achieved the feat of generating more than 1 billion dollars during his sports career. In this way, the Swiss tennis player joins a very short list, which so far only included the golfer Tiger Woods, the boxer Floyd Mayweather, the basketball player LeBron James and the footballers Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
Of those 1,000 million dollars that Federer has billed since his debut in 1998, only 130 million correspond to the earnings he has obtained on the court. Instead, the remaining 870 million have come through sponsorship agreements, millionaire compensation for participating in special exhibition tournaments and other atypical income sources.
Most interesting of all, Federer’s income has skyrocketed precisely as his tennis career entered its final phase.. It all starts in 2018, when Nike opts to terminate its sponsorship contract with the eternal rival of Rafael Nadal. This agreement reported 10 million dollars annually to the winner of 20 Grand Slam tournaments.
Nike decided not to renew the sponsorship agreement signed with FedererBut the tennis legend did not sit idly by and began exploring other options. Conscious of his image as a calm, elegant and reliable man, found a natural ally in Uniqlo. In fact, the Japanese giant of the textile sector offered him three times more than Nike for forging an alliance that will last, at the moment, for five years – although it is probable that in 2022 he will not play a game until the second half of the year.
But Federer made sure that the agreement with Uniqlo would only cover the sponsorship of its competition clothing and the design of a more casual clothing line, thus leaving the door open to a new agreement: the one it closed with the sports shoe brand On Running. By virtue of this agreement, Federer acquired 3% of the shares of this Swiss company. And, after the firm’s IPO, the tennis player has seen his fortune widen by another 300 million, since the capitalization of On Running has already exceeded the 10,000 million threshold.
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