Business empire of billionaire Federer

In 2019, Federer stood in the middle of the field in Basel, Switzerland, in the golden rain of glitter and tears rolling down his cheeks. Emotions expressed naturally after the overwhelming victory at the final of the Swiss Indoors - the home tournament where he was the boy picked up the ball. But that moment seemed to draw an increasingly clear perspective that, at the age of 38, such moments in his professional tennis career may not be much.

In fact, that trophy was the last title Federer won. The injury caused the last three years of his career on the British tour to be seriously affected, before Federer retired in September 2022.

Federer, now 44 years old, does not add any title to the collection of 20 Grand Slam and two Olympic medals. But he was still the top tennis player of the tennis village until he retired - and later. According to the August update of Forbes magazine, Federer is currently a billionaire with a net worth of US $ 1.1 billion, largely thanks to a significant sharing of Swiss shoe brands and sports costumes, a public listed company. He started playing tennis at the age of three, becoming the world's number one tennis player at a young level. After moving to professional from 1998, Federer created a breakthrough in 2003 with the men's singles championship. During the 24 years of competition at ATP Tour, Federer has 310 weeks to hold the world's number one position in the men's singles, winning 103 titles and earning nearly 131 million USD alone - until now is still the third highest number in tennis history, only after Novak Djokovic (US $ 189 million) and Rafael Nadal (US $ 135 million). More impressive, when he earns about 1 billion USD (before tax and representative fee) from advertising, appearing publicly and other business activities in the tennis career.. This figure is twice as high as the amount of Djokovic or Nadal collected, also according to Forbes's estimates. With the category of sponsors, no one can match, including many brands that accompany for more than a decade, Federer is the world's leading money -making tennis player for 16 consecutive years and in 2020, leading all sports with a total before tax income of $ 106.3 million. LeBron James, golf Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, football players Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and boxing boxers Floyd Mayweather.

Now, nearly three years after retiring, Federer entered another rare group - becoming one of the seven senior athletes to join the billionaire club with net -after -tax assets and deducting at least $ 1 billion. The first person in this group was also a player, Tiriac ion, the 1970 -French expansion champion and also played a hockey for the Romanian team at the 1964 Winter Olympics. Tiriac began to invest after the Soviet Union disintegrated, joined the billionaire list in 2007 and has estimated assets of 2.3 billion USD, with investments in real estate, automotive agents and financial services. Michael Jordan basketball dialogue in 2014, there is an estimated assets of US $ 3.8 billion. And then the legendary Lakers Magic Johnson, with a fortune worth about US $ 1.5 billion, and former Milwaukee Bucks reserve player Junior Bridgeman, the owner of a $ 1.4 billion asset block in March. LeBron James (US $ 1.2 billion) and Tiger Woods (US $ 1.3 billion) are the only two athletes to join the billion -bi -bat Fighting.

Federer's business success originates from his marketing attraction. The category of sponsors was carefully built, including long-term brands such as Lindt, Mercedes-Benz, Rolex and Moet & Chandon, helped him become a symbol of elegance, blending with elegant tennis style and spotless reputation..

"Federer's personality and love are the big plus points ", Lisa Delpy Neirotti, director of sports management program at George Washington University, said. "You may be an excellent athletes on the field, but not everyone likes you. Federer has an elegant style. He has a good -looking appearance, very polite, sophisticated, and his brands reflect that ".

Federer took advantage of that attraction in 2018 when he broke up with Nike - where he paid him about 150 million USD in two decades - to sign a costume contract with Japanese brand Uniqlo with a value of $ 300 million in 10 years. When Federer still contracts with Nike, based on the exclusive term of the brand, he is only allowed to promote, use and receive sponsorship from this company for both clothes and shoes. And because Uniqlo did not produce tennis shoes, this left an "drum sponsor category" for Federer. He immediately seized the opportunity, cooperated with ON, a company based in Zurich.

Federer knew on when his wife started wearing its shoes, and he quickly contacted the founders David Alleman, Olivier Bernhard and Caspar Coppetti. In 2019, Federer started holding shares in the company on the rise, focusing on jogging shoes. He is not only a passive investor, but also agrees to help the brand develop the line of tennis shoes and lifestyle outfit. This gamble was successful after only two years when listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, of which Federer owned about 3% of the shares. The company currently has a market capitalization of nearly US $ 15 billion, and stocks increased by 86% compared to the IPO price, helping Federer's shares exceeded more than $ 375 million.

Marc Maurer, then the CEO of ON, told Forbes in 2023: "Roger is the catalyst. With us ".

Federer also achieved impressive profits from other investments. In 2013, he co -founder Team8 management company and longtime representative Tony Godick. Four years later, they created Laver Cup, annual tennis tournament between six European men and 6 players from the rest of the world. This event, now a stop recognized by ATP and attracts famous players, constantly profitable - except in 2023 when improving infrastructure - according to Sports Business Journal. This year's Laver Cup is expected to take place in San Francisco, USA in September, expected to exceed 20 million dollars both in terms of sponsorship and ticket revenue and service.

Federer may soon have another success. In 2021, he participated in the Capital Round of Series D of US $ 235 million for Notco, a Chilean company developing food from plants. The capital calling round, with the participation of famous investors such as F1 Lewis Hamilton racer and drums with Roots Questlove, valued "Startup " at $ 1.5 billion. A year later, NotCo raised an additional USD 70 million when launching a unit licensing artificial intelligence tool for other food manufacturers under the B2B business model. 2023. Among the advertising points, he is still more popular than most other players, with 43.5 million followers on Facebook, Instagram and X - only behind Rafael Nadal with 51.6 million, according to the Two Circles Marketing Agency. Over the past three years, Federer has achieved 2.3%interaction rate on social networking platforms, nearly double that of Djokovic (1.2%) and four times more than Nadal (0.5%).

"I think this empire will last ", Professor Delpy Neirotti from George Washington University concluded that Federer's advertising value. "I think he will be able to maintain this".