Wimbledon tennis in a battle of the brands

Get ready for your summer of sport, and the business that goes with it. When we were watching Wimbledon, my daughter made a cute remark about how she’d seen lots of people going about their sporting business wearing clothing with a “sports tick”. So in our house the Federer/Murray final became “sports tick vrs sports triangle”, or more correctly, Nike Swoosh vrs the Adidas logo.

Anyone over the age of 10 is fully alert to this battle of the brands. And as the BBC points out, the final winner’s prize of £1.15m isn’t so exciting when you already have an estimated fortune of £24m, which is reportedly true of Andy Murray. Financially, his real focus has to be building his “brand”, hopefully leading to him being swamped with sponsorship deals. And Murray’s place as the first British man to reach the final in 74 years puts him into a different league: to a point where global brands will start using him to promote their products.

The interesting bit of business studies is that sponsorship fortunes don’t necessary match sporting success. It’s not just a case of sports stars doubling their on-court winnings with the amount they earned through sponsorships.

It’s down to “different images, different personalities and public perception,” according to one expert. Compare Wayne Rooney to David Beckham. Or Anna Kournikova, who never won a singles title, but made a fortune in sponsorship. Sponsors have very different views of who is a “successful” sports superstar.

Keep your eyes on the business and the Olympics, which I’m sure will get lots of attention on the T2U blog!