Naomi Osaka Charting Fresh Business Path As Partnership Agreements Mount

Naomi Osaka has choices. That’s what comes with being one of the top tennis players in the world with a fan following stretching from Japan to the United States. Add in the 23-year-old’s diverse off-court interests, social expression and continued on-court prowess—that third Grand Slam title at the 2020 U.S. Open punctuated her staying power—and the Osaka business portfolio continues to diversify in both partnership agreements and contract structures.

Osaka, who turned pro in 2014 just before age 16, became the highest-earning female athlete in 2020, according to Forbes data, with 12-month earnings of $37.4 million, a single-year record for female athletes. The former world No. 1 and current world No. 3 turned household name by winning the 2018 U.S. Open. She followed that up with the 2019 Australian Open. 

For a player with Japanese citizenship—her mother is Japanese—who has lived in the United States since age 3, the planned 2020 Olympics in Tokyo (now scheduled for summer 2021) gave her a sponsorship bump following her 2018 and 2019 breakout. But no longer is Osaka’s business about the Olympics. She has 16 sponsorship partners, a hybrid of traditional deals and equity-stake deals. 

“Naomi is in the fortunate position that she has a good string of income,” says her agent and senior vice president of IMG Tennis, Stuart Duguid. “She is not just chasing paychecks and the first conversation with a sponsor is never about the money anymore. There are so many things that are a bigger priority than the money. That is the luxury we have.”

Since the U.S. Open victory in September 2020, Osaka hasn’t stopped. She’s joined French luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton as a global ambassador, united with Tag Heuer as a global ambassador, been featured in national advertising as a new global ambassador with Beats, helped PlayStation launch the PS5, signed on as a brand ambassador for Workday

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WDAY
, starred in a new Levi’s campaign and invested her own money in the North Carolina Courage women’s professional soccer team. That’s just five months and only a smidgen of what she could be involved in. 

“We are turning a lot of opportunities down,” Duguid says. “Time is the main issue. And brand alignment. Unless it is a good fit, there is no point in being in business.” 

Osaka is positioned for continued growth, especially as women’s tennis takes its star power to new places. With the likes of Serena Williams in the game, Max Eisenbud, IMG senior vice president and head of tennis clients, says that when men’s tennis lose the big three, the women’s platform may grow even larger for a sport already brimming with female interest and success. “The platform for women’s tennis, I think, is the leader,” he says. “Other sports are coming. The WNBA is coming, what women’s soccer in the U.S. is doing is amazing, but I think when you look at our icons, what Serena is doing, what Naomi is doing, it is pretty impressive.” 

Then comes Osaka’s personal ambition to one day build her own fashion brand. That personal goal comes through in her latest business agreements. The Beats contract includes language guaranteeing she designs headphones for the four Grand Slam events each year, the first point established in the deal. The Levi’s partnership, which launched Feb. 3, is now a two-year agreement that allows her to design her own collection at least once per year. And then comes Nike

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NKE
, which she signed with in 2019 for a reported $10 million per year after previously being at Adidas. “We spent a lot of time discussing her own line,” Duguid says about those negotiations. The November 2020 release of her Nike Sportswear line in both Japan and the U.S. was an example of a lifestyle collection she had “great input” on. And one that sold out. 

Even non-fashion brands allow her to explore her interests. A 2020 MasterCard

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MA
campaign, largely shelved due to the pandemic, played off Osaka’s last name by running advertising in different Japanese cities, changing her name to match that city, such as Naomi Tokyo, Naomi Kyoto and more. MasterCard paired her with a Japanese designer to create her own unique dress for each city’s campaign. “That is a great example of where it is a credit card, but it about what the brand stands for rather than the product,” Duguid says. “The imagery is stunning.” 

This focus on design and fashion stems from a discussion Duguid had two years ago with Osaka about her wanting her own brand. His advice was that while her stock was so high, she should align with partners with world-class creative designers to learn the business. “She will be present on business calls to listen in and learn,” he says. “Then, post-career, she will want to start her own brand, her own line and use all that experience and those connections to put that into practice. I think for now, for her, it is to learn and exercise her creative juices.” 

No matter the deal, authenticity matters, partly to make it meaningful to both parties, but also because Osaka can only agree to so many partnerships. One example is her Bodyarmor agreement, which includes an equity stake worth 10 times what it was when she signed. At the time, both Coca-Cola

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KO
and Bodyarmor were trying to sign Osaka. She doesn’t drink Coke, Duguid says, and not only drank Bodyarmour, but was friends with part-owner Kobe Bryant. And she wanted the equity stake. Her equity stake in Hyperice has also paid off. 

“We are in it together and have each other’s backs,” Osaka says about her brand partners. “It’s even more so the case with Bodyarmor where I’m actually part-owner of the company, so it feels very much like a family and we are in this together.” 

Take her recent PlayStation agreement. Osaka is a gamer and uses the PlayStation as her console of choice. Duguid and PlayStation were talking for months, looking for the right time to start a relationship. So, while she helped with the PS5 launch in late 2020, expect to see more cooperation in the next six to 12 months. For Osaka, choosing the right product to partner with is about “brands I feel connected to either through organic use, culture or messaging.” 

“I think the industry has evolved a lot,” Duguid says about the mix of deals. “When I first started it was very much a do your shoot and wear our logo and see you next year. Now, with the advent of social media, brands are looking to align with authenticity and that ties in with Naomi. You can see through a campaign that is take the money and see you later. Brands are trying to integrate the talent more, especially when it comes to her. She is so relatable and authentic.” 

Eisenbud says the shift of athletes becoming more than just endorsers has really taken place over the last seven years. He remembers when Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon at age 17 in 2004 and every deal was a three-year product deal. But as athletes become wealthier, they can take bigger risks, such as with equity stakes. “Looking at Naomi’s portfolio, Stuart has done a masterful job with hybrid relationships of standard deals, equity deals and some putting in her own money,” Eisenbud says. “They have done an amazing job with all these eclectic deals.” 

The January investment in the North Carolina Courage—first and foremost a business deal—also shows off Osaka’s desire to be a business leader. After multiple discussions with Billie Jean King, also an investor in professional sports teams, Osaka decided to inspire others by using her position to support women’s sports. 

The continued rise of Osaka’s brand has gone through some shifts. Prior to summer 2020, she was marginally more popular in Japan than the U.S., at least according to the brand interest she received. That has swung, with a new level of excitement in the U.S., partially on her recent tennis success in the U.S. and on her outspoken activism on social issues “that definitely elevated her profile.” 

While Osaka hasn’t added any new partners since her 2020 U.S. Open win that she wasn’t already in discussion with, Duguid says that some of her partners have changed campaigns because of her activism, such as Beats and Levi’s. In Japan, though, her outspoken summer has taken on a bit of a different character, with Duguid saying she has huge support among the younger demographic, but with the society as a whole not sure how to handle her using her voice outside of sports. 

Some of Osaka’s longest-standing partners come from Japan, whether racket brand Yonex or noodle maker Nissin. Both those brands have been with her since before she cracked the top-100 and while Osaka has stayed loyal to them and wants to be with them, the deals have been structured differently—with much larger numbers—than originally. And those Japanese brands, along with others, are still hopeful the Olympics happen in Tokyo in 2021, another opportunity to leverage their relationship with one of the most popular Japanese athletes. For Osaka, who views the Olympics as a potential pinnacle moment, the event was once where all her deals were building toward, from brand activations to her portfolio. “Now, as an individual and an athlete she stands alone,” Duguid says. “It is not so important to business as it might have been, even if it is important to her personally.” 

While tennis has historically been the leader for women’s sports, Osaka is now even bigger than tennis itself, forging new ways to structure business dealings for elite sports men and women. Duguid says there is a team of 20 working on the Osaka business across the IMG and WME Sports organization, from when she worked on a manga character to a Netflix

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NFLX
documentary, with about half a dozen of those people spending 90% of their time on her portfolio. 

“Obviously she is a special player and they don’t come along very often where you are transcending the sport and becoming an icon,” says Eisenbud. He says her 2020 U.S. Open run, coupled with her social activism, turned her from champion to icon. “That is fun to watch and be a part of.”