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One of the world’s biggest sports celebrities, Naomi Osaka’s tennis career has taken on some familiarity in the past 16 months.
His success on the field was limited due to a series of self-imposed layoffs to manage his struggles with mental health, motivational difficulties, and occasional physical ailments, but off the field he had insane success and solidified his status. the world’s highest paid athletes and by far the highest paid female athlete.
While sitting at the Italian Open to recover from Achilles’ injury and prepare for the French Open, the second Grand Slam event of the year, Osaka announced that it will set up a representative office to take more control of its climb. business portfolio. Osaka and its longtime manager Stuart Duguid have left sports and entertainment conglomerate IMG to launch Evolve, which will manage the commercial interests of Osaka and potentially other clients the agency may sign on.
News of Osaka’s decision to launch Evolve has arrived First reported by Sportico.
Osaka, 24, a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, earned nearly $60 million last year. according to Forbes, with an estimated $55 million coming from more than a dozen corporate sponsors. With Tiger Woods, he ranked 12th on the Forbes list of highest paid athletes. Mixed martial artist Conor McGregor topped the list, earning $180 million.
In an interview Wednesday, Duguid said that Osaka’s main priority is to win tennis matches and tournaments. He said his typical day includes training and treatments followed by lunch with his physical therapist in the morning, but when that’s over, he almost always wants to engage with his cultural or business interests.
“He’s not someone who likes to play video games and binge Netflix all day,” said Duguid, who has worked closely with Osaka since he was a teenager.
Osaka’s rankings have dropped over the past year and a half, largely due to playing very little. At the beginning of 2021, it was ranked second in the world, but this year it has dropped to 85th place. he did Finals at Miami Open It climbed to #38 in April and hopes to return to the top 10 by the end of the year.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to be #1 again,” he said at the tournament in Miami.
A spokesperson for IMG declined to comment.
While losing a star of Osaka’s size is a significant loss for the company, it will likely continue to make money from the current endorsement deals it negotiates on its behalf. One of the handful of outstanding tennis stars IMG has represented over the past two decades. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have left the IMG group in recent years to start a business with their agents Tony Godsick and Carlos Costa.
For Osaka, Evolve’s goal is not only to save money on paying commissions to a third party, but also to increase its business portfolio from approximately $50 million today to $150 million a year in the coming years. There are more company logos on tennis clothing.
Duguid said Osaka could really reduce its turnover portfolio. The Evolve model is similar to the businesses founded by many of Osaka’s role models in the sports industry, many of whom are close friends, including LeBron James and Stephen Curry. Osaka was also close with Kobe Bryant, who was an early mentor to him, who died in a helicopter crash in 2020.
He has been weighing up an initiative like Evolve since the Tokyo Olympics, when he lit the Olympic cauldron. face of games In Japan, his homeland. Osaka wanted more room to invest in businesses, own an ownership stake in them, and grow its own business. Last year, she founded Kinlò, a skincare products company focused on people with melanin or darker skin tones.
This announcement came days after Osaka. Out of the US Open in the third round, after being upset by an extraordinary Canadian, Leylah Fernandez. He announced at a press conference, crying after the match, that he plans to take a break from tennis indefinitely. He had previously taken seven weeks off. Withdrawn from the French Open last spring, after a dispute with the tournament organizers. Osaka has stated that it will not attend mandatory press conferences after the matches. The organizers had threatened to kick him out of the tournament if he didn’t meet their news media obligations, so Osaka withdrew.
Neither the timeouts nor his drop in ranking seem to have affected his ability to grow his business off the field. Now, Duguid said, he will try to maintain his leading position off the field while trying to regain the position he once had.
“It’s an itchy thing for him,” he said.
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