Young Spanish tennis sensation Carlos Alcaraz beat former champion Novak Djokovic to win Wimbledon and serve up a new Gen Z era in tennis marketing as tournament partners and personal sponsors activated around the 20-year-old’s victory.
After winning a titanic struggle with Djokovic on 16 July and lifting his second Grand Slam, a range of brands – from sports-specific companies such as racquet partner Babalot and apparel partner Nike, to luxury marks like BMW, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton and Rolex, as well as regionally relevant organisations – rolled out congratulatory content to associate themselves with the sport’s new super star: ushering in a new tennis marketing era after the lengthy dominance of the so-called Big Three (Djokovic, Federer and Nadal).
The marketing wave of fairly simple, low latency congratulatory social media content spanned multiple markets and categories as the young Spaniard became an international super star who’s reach looks certain to stretch far beyond his own sport.
Nike leveraged its official apparel partnership with the player through this very theme with a post running across its core brand channels (rather than just its tennis platforms) which proclaimed ‘The Alcaraz Era is upon us’.
The player’s racquet supplier Babolat, a storied brand formed in 1875 around the very birth of the sports of tennis and badminton, also congratulated its new lead tennis ambassador through its Instagram account.
Louis Vuitton, which penned an endorser partnership deal with Alcaraz in late June, also congratulated the new ‘Ambassador of the House of Louis Vuitton’ on his Wimbledon win.
While Wimbledon sponsor Rolex leveraged the fact that he lifted the trophy whilst wearing one of its watches.
Alcaraz is also a champion for his local community and region and is reported to still live with his parents in their flat above a kebab shop in Murcia (Southern Spain). Little surprise then that local food industry giant ElPozo Alimentación congratulated fellow Murcian for his achievement descriving him as #OneMásOfTheFamily, while even the regional tourist organisation Turismo Región de Murcia posted on Instagram saying that the young tennis star was ‘bigger than himself Cabo de Palos lighthouse’.
Comment
Winning Wimbledon was worth £2.3m in prize money to Alcaraz, but ‘Gen Z’s new sporting hero could now generate an additional £30m in endorsement deals by the end of 2023 as he becomes a generation’s hero in a global sport that appeals to both men and women.
Instead of simple still images, next time we predict partner brands, particularly in the sports space, will pre-shoot specific Alcaraz ads and longer forms films, build major campaigns around him, and have spots in the can and ready to roll out to leverage future tournament wins.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.