Wimbledon: the luxury marketing platform
Wimbledon bosses always talk about the tricky job of balancing tennis heritage with the demands of the modern age.
When it comes to sponsorship, the oldest Grand Slam has sought what might be called “useful” commercial partners. So Rolex keeps the time during matches, Slazenger provides the balls, Evian keeps everyone hydrated and Vodafone provides on-site WiFi. The idea is to keep things understated, not flashy and gratuitous.
Players are also using Wimbledon in a similar way as they look to show off their own endorsements. As soon as he’s won a match, Novak Djokovic nips over to his racket bag to fish out his Hublot watch before pulling on his Lacoste blazer.
In her brief reprise on Centre Court this week, Serena Williams donned an outfit made of Nike’s Radical AirFlow material — a netlike fabric that actively cools the body during movement.
One can only speculate what the commercial value of seeing the 44-year-old back on the biggest stage in tennis was to Zepbound, the Williams-backed weight-loss drug (which has a list price of over $1,000 a month).
However, Aryna Sabalenka has so far left her Gucci handbag — a big talking point at the French Open — in the locker room.
It’s a far cry from the viewing experience at the World Cup, where sponsorship is aggressive and relentless. But the World Cup is mass market, where big consumer brands are looking to reach hundreds of millions of eyeballs all around the world to shift high-volume, low-margin goods like beer, fizzy drinks, laptops and airline tickets.
Wimbledon — and tennis more broadly — is more like that part of an international airport terminal where all the luxury brands have their boutiques. The engaged audience is relatively mass, but the actual customer base is less so.
That helps explain why financial services companies are getting in on it too. Hedge fund Blue Owl’s logo is now visible on dozens of players’ shirts and coaches’ caps across the four Grand Slams. Private equity firm General Atlantic recently hired Djokovic as an adviser and rival PE house EQT is now a sponsor of the ATP.
And so Wimbledon — and other big tennis events — have carved out their own little niche in the world of sport where companies can pitch their services to asset allocators, both domestic and institutional