After two and a half months away from the match court, Roger Federer is back.
He’ll hit the grass in Stuttgart for his first match on Wednesday, against veteran lefty Mischa Zverev, a familiar opponent on grass.
Of the five times they’ve met (Federer has yet to lose a set), three have been on grass. Two of them came a year ago, in Halle and in the third round at Wimbledon.
But before the 36-year-old even serves, he has already made plenty of news.
The most amusing part was the officially-scheduled Federer practice on Sunday on the centre court in Stuttgart.
A telling sign of just exactly how much a player of Federer’s pedigree means to a 250-level tournament like Stuttgart was that his hit was announced for 5 p.m. on the official order of play.
That was – of course – right in the middle of the French Open in Paris between Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem.
Federer seemed rather in good spirits for the practice with Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber.
But the focus was partly on what Federer was wearing.
The answer: Nike, of course. At least for now.
Rumours of a move to Uniqlo
Fact: Federer’s 10-year deal with Nike expired March 1.
And, as with any contract renewal negotiation, discussions would have begun long before that expiry date.
But there is no deal yet.
And, in the interim, a trial balloon was floated that the Japanese company Uniqlo has weighed in with a massive offer.
It appears that Vince Martucci at Sportsenators.it was the first in the non-Asian markets to put this out there.
Uniqlo, which sponsors Japanese superstar Kei Nishikori (and just re-upped with him in a $50 million deal that takes both sides through the market-crucial Tokyo Olympics in 2020), freed up some cash after Novak Djokovic went to Lacoste.
But … $30 million US a year, for 10 years? That would take it well beyond Federer’s playing days, and well into his retirement. Well, one would assume, anyway.
Federer acknowledged that the Nike deal (which was a reported $100 million for 10 years, and probably undervalued in the market by this point, given Federer’s resurgence) had expired, and that he’d heard the rumours.
“These rumors are known to me. (Not a) rumor is that my Nike contract expired in March. There are negotiations going on, there’s nothing more to say. You are certainly the first to know when something is going in that direction,” Federer said during a press conference in Stuttgart Monday.
A lot of outlets are reporting this as a done deal. It’s unlikely that’s true. But the gloves are off.
Looking for lifetime deal?
It’s hard to imagine that Team Federer would want to leave Nike. It’s an association that has been ongoing since 1994. And Federer’s RF Nike logo is iconic.
And it’s hard to imagine that Nike would want to leave Federer. The Swiss star is, by a wide margin, the player who moves the most tennis merchandise for them – for any tennis manufacturer, actually.
But at what price?
That obviously is the rub.
If it has taken this long to come to an agreement, there are two factors to be looked at. The first is the actual dollars. The second is the length of the agreement, with Federer’s playing days counting down.
From the Team Federer perspective, you could speculate realistically that they’re looking for a lifetime deal. He has become, through the years, a sporting icon who transcends tennis.
But the Nike business revolves around the shoe.
Basketball superstar LeBron James signed a lifetime deal with the company in 2015. He’s 33..
Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who also is 33, signed a lifetime deal of his own in November, 2016.
Michael Jordan, who has been retired 15 years, is estimated to have earned $473 million from his Nike association since 1993. And only the first 10 years of that came while he was an active player.
Federer’s name recognition is up there with those athletes, on some levels. But the sport he plays does not bring Nike nearly the same level of revenue. And so a “lifetime” deal wouldn’t come with nearly the same number of dollars.
The Agassi comparison
In July, 2005, lifelong Nike wearer Andre Agassi switched to adidas, which had long sponsored his wife, Steffi Graf.
For a long period of time, the American was as identified with the “swoosh” as Federer is now. Maybe even more – on the North American scene, especially. And the association revolutionized the marketing of tennis.
It seemed unthinkable at the time that he would leave. But Agassi spun it well; the deal with adidas had huge philanthropic element, a financial commitment to his foundation.
But in 2013, Agassi returned to Nike, emphasizing that the association would help promote the company’s “Designed to Move” campaign.
Money, or image?
Nike is Nike, the standard-bearer for sports merchandise.
Uniqlo, which is rapidly expanding (although doesn’t yet have stores in Federer’s homeland), is far more of a sportswear company than a tennis concern.
Its clothes are reasonably priced and fairly bland, sort of on par with The Gap and Old Navy in the U.S.
The company has repeatedly tried to crack the American market, but seems to not yet have found the winning formula to compete with the other chain stores in its market segment.
Would Federer be a difference-maker worldwide? Certainly they seem to think so, especially if Federer plays on and competes in the 2020 Olympics on Uniqlo’s home turf.
But what we really don’t know is how legitimate those alleged numbers are.
Make no mistake, the news of this sudden “competitor” for Federer’s allegiance was strategically leaked.
And those numbers are perhaps an inadvertent clue into what Team Federer believes its man is worth to Nike.
Perhaps, with negotiations not progressing after all these months, it was time to try to put pressure on Nike. The rumours are undoubtedly a move to put Federer in what’s always the best negotiation position: creating a bidding war and letting Nike know that what they’ve come up with so far isn’t nearly enough. And that if they don’t up the ante, someone else is ready to take it on.
Public-relations repercussions
The delicate balance here is the potential harm it could do to Federer’s “peRFect” image.
Forbes’ estimate of Federer’s career earnings (and this was a few years ago) came in at about $600 million.
So – and this is an understatement – the Swiss star has earned more than he and generations of his descendants could ever possibly spend.
Federer has a number of high-profile sponsorship deals, most recently a $40 million contract with the pasta-maker Barilla. The company’s Federer commercials regularly ran on French television during the French Open, despite his absence.
And early in the event, he was even in town for a Moët champagne event celebrating his 20 years on tour. A special bottle priced at $19,998 was announced, with the profits going to his foundation.
The Nike-Federer relationship is firmly anchored. And a lot fans can’t imagine one without the other.
If it’s perceived that Federer left merely because of big stacks of money, the average fan making a working salary will resent it.
So if it happens, that’s going to require some deft public relations.
There’s always a “respect” component to these things – a “scoreboard” where success is measured not so much by the actual dollars (especially when the athlete concerned is beyond worrying about the dollars). It’s about “did he get what he’s worth, relative to other athletes at his level?”
In the end, it’s a chase for one dollar more than the other guy got. That means a “win”.
The 2018 season was always going to be a fascinating one, from this perspective. Because Rafael Nadal’s long-term deal with Nike also is expiring this year.
So what happens with Federer is something Team Nadal no doubt will keep a close eye on.
But back to tennis …
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