"In addition to athletic performance, the commercial value of an athlete is increasingly linked to exposure, traffic, and fan activity."

Text/ Ba Jiuling

On July 2, 2013, Li Na was eliminated in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. It had been two years since she won her first French Open title in 2011 and became the best active female player in China. A fan postedWeibowrote:

"If Na loses, she will only be further away from the Grand Slam trophy. The rise of newcomers and the increase of young forces will become her weakness...And in China, no one will take over Na Jie’s position within ten years.”

In January 2014, Li Na won her first Australian Open title, and eight months later, she retired. The fan's sentiment came true. Over the past decade, there have been many new tennis stars, but there has never been the "next Li Na".

Until Zheng Qinwen appeared.

"The next Li Na"

On August 3, when Zheng Qinwen won the historic women's singles tennis final at the Paris Olympics, she became China's new top star.

Within 48 hours, her story spread to thousands of households. Regardless of whether people had done any research beforehand, they couldn't help but look closely at this "new species" and naturally associated her past and future with Li Na.

Zheng Qinwen was indeed moving forward quickly along the same path that Li Na had taken.

Zheng Qinwen wins China's first Olympic tennis singles gold medal

In 2013, when Li Na was "frustrated" in her Grand Slam journey, 11-year-old Zheng Qinwen signed up for an open tournament for young tennis players from around the world hosted by IMG Academy.

She made a big splash in the competition and successfully signed a contract with IMGEndeavor GroupTwo years later, 13-year-old Zheng Qinwen gotNikesponsorship.

In 2020, when he turned 18 and became an adult, Zheng Qinwen officially embarked on the path of a professional player, starting from the 630th place in the world and working his way up.

In the following year or so, Zheng Qinwen participated in nearly 30 competitions. In 2021, she won the W25 Hamburg, Germany, W60 Czech Republic, and W25 Funchal, Portugal.

In 2022, Zheng Qinwen advanced to the top 16 in her first French Open and was elected WTA Newcomer of the Year in the 2022 season.

By January 2024, Zheng Qinwen failed to replicate Li Na's Australian Open championship, but her runner-up result allowed her ranking to rise to seventh place.

At this time, Zheng Qinwen is only one step away from the world's sixth place when Li Na retires, and also away from Li Na's peak of world's second place. The 21-year-old Zheng Qinwen still has plenty of time to catch up.

People compare her to Li Na, not only comparing the heights of her career, but also pressing the calculator to calculate her business heights.

After making history by winning the French Open in 2011, Li Na had 13 endorsements by 2014, almost all of which were first-tier brands in the industry, surpassing the record of 12 endorsements held by Liu Xiang and Yao Ming at their peak.

In June 2011, Li Na won the French Open women's singles championship

At that time, some media estimated that based on the 13 brands currently endorsed by Li Na, with a starting price of 8 million RMB, the three-year contract would have exceeded the 300 million RMB mark.

Zheng Qinwen's achievements are obviously not limited to this.

In addition to youth being an asset (Li Na was 29 years old when she won the French Open), more importantly, before "going public" through the Olympics, Zheng Qinwen had already obtained many rounds of "high-quality financing."

According to incomplete statistics from the media, Zheng Qinwen has at least 10 endorsement brands, in addition to Nike,Ant Group(Alipay), Rolex, Wilson, Swisher,McDonald's, Yili, Gatorade, Bawang Tea Princess, Lancome, etc.

That’s why some people say that Zheng Qinwen is targeting the Chinese athlete with the highest commercial value at this stage.

At this moment, she is only one step away from the previous top star Gu Ailing (the 2023 Forbes Wealth List shows that Gu Ailing's income in 2023 is 22.1 million US dollars, about 158 ​​million yuan, and she has 20 endorsements before the Winter Olympics). She still has plenty of time to catch up with the "endorsement queen" Li Na at her peak.

"Zheng Qinwen's Business War"

Among the "cool articles" about Zheng Qinwen in 48 hours, the most eye-catching one is the story of Zheng Qinwen's father, Zheng Jianping, who is also her "angel investor" and invested 20 million yuan over the years and finally cultivated his daughter into a successful person. Netizens jokingly called this investment "as godly as Buffett."

It has been confirmed that the 20 million was an estimate made by netizens based on the cost of training top tennis players, especially after referring to Zheng Qinwen's improvement process, but it has not received a response or acknowledgement from the parties involved.

But if we look at it from the perspective of "return on investment", Zheng Qinwen has to manage himself in addition to competing and stand out in the fierce business competition.

On the one hand, tennis is indeed a golden track. In the Forbes "2023 World's Highest-Paid Female Athletes" income list, nine of the top ten female athletes are tennis players, with only skier Gu Ailing being an exception. But this also shows how crowded this competition track is (for exposure and mental considerations, brands rarely sponsor the same type of athletes for a period of time).

on the other hand,There are many factors that affect the commercial value of a sports star, which can be roughly divided into "athletic performance", "degree of professionalism in the industry", "personal charm" and "agency team".Subtle changes in each factor will affect the level of returns.

Athletic performance is the easiest to understand. The better Zheng Qinwen's performance, the higher his commercial value will naturally be.

As mentioned above, Li Na's sponsorship contract is for at least three years, and the annual starting price must not be less than 8 million yuan. However, when Li Na's "performance" goes further, the agency team will re-determine the starting price and year, and also review whether the quality of each sponsoring brand is "in line with" Li Na's new status.

As for the degree of industry professionalism, personal charm and brokerage team, they will be reflected in Zheng Qinwen's worth list in the form of "on-field income" and "off-field income" respectively.

The so-called on-field income, as the name suggests, is the income obtained from the competition, which is determined by the commercial attributes of the event itself; while off-field income can be roughly understood as endorsement income, which is inseparable from the athlete's personal charm and the cooperation of the agency team.

The income from different projects varies greatly.

In 2024, in tennis tournaments, the total prize money for Grand Slam tournaments alone reached 53.5 million euros, equivalent to 400 million yuan, while in swimming events, the highest prize money was the Champions Swim Series, with a total prize money of only 3.9 million US dollars, equivalent to 28 million yuan.

Some athletes, relying on their talent in their sport, earn high incomes on the field.

Football is one of the projects with the highest commercial value. Therefore, in 2023, Cristiano Ronaldo became the world's highest-paid football player with an income of 260 million US dollars. Among them, the on-field income is expected to be 200 million US dollars, and the off-field income is 60 million US dollars. The on-field: off-field ratio is 10:3.

In the 2018-2019 season, Messi's income included club annual salary plus bonuses (on-field bonuses) of more than 91 million U.S. dollars, and commercial endorsement income of more than 35 million U.S. dollars (off-field income), with the on-field: off-field ratio being approximately 3:1.

The Hurun Report in 2010 showed that Yao Ming earned a total of RMB 700 million that year, including RMB 560 million in salary from the Rockets over five years and RMB 140 million from advertising endorsements, with the on-court: off-court income ratio being approximately 5:1.

Some athletes rely on their personal charm and business operations to earn high off-field income.

For example, Liu Xiang. According to relevant statistics, Liu Xiang received more than 17 million yuan in bonuses during his career. According to data from the Forbes list, Liu Xiang earned 535 million yuan in 11 years since his debut, and the rest of his income came from off the field.

In 2007, Liu Xiang appeared in a supermarket shopping cart advertisement

As for Zheng Qinwen's current situation, it belongs to the "Liu Xiang model". At the end of 2023, Forbes magazine published the annual income list of female athletes. She ranked 15th with a total income of 7.2 million US dollars, including 1.7 million US dollars in tournament prize money and 5.5 million US dollars in endorsement sponsorship income (about 40 million yuan). Objectively speaking, the proportion of prize money income is a bit small.

After the Paris Olympics, this proportion is likely to expand further.

“Idol + Athlete”

In addition, the commercial value of an athlete, in addition to athletic performance, is increasingly associated with Internet terms such as exposure, traffic, and fan activity.

The public account "Entertainment Hard Candy" listed several interesting phenomena in an article:

◎ In 2016, Sports Weekly published the Chinese Sports Wealth List. Sun Yang, who won 9 gold medals, topped the list, but Zhang Jike, who has a lot of fans, ranked second. Ning Zetao, who has never won an Olympic medal, ranked third, surpassing Yi Jianlian and Lin Dan.

◎ Zhang Jike, who is at the same level in terms of performance, has a commercial value that is 6 times that of Ma Long (a similar phenomenon may also occur in Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha in the future).

◎ Before this year's Paris Olympics, the handsome swimmer Wang Shun won a total of 12 endorsements, which is comparable to the number of endorsements won by celebrities Wang Hedi and Gong Jun.

This directly leads to off-field income being more attractive to some athletes.It also means that compared to the past, the impact of personal charm and the quality of the agency team on the commercial value of athletes will be further increased.

The Endeavor Group behind Zheng Qinwen is the world's largest and most extensive sports entertainment marketing management company, which owns tennis stars Federer, Nadal and Li Na, as well as Gu Ailing and Su Yiming.

It's good to lean on a big tree for shade. In terms of personal charm, this professional management team has paved the way for Zheng Qinwen to go fashion-forward outside of competitions early on.

After reaching the Australian Open final, Zheng Qinwen has so far received covers of two of the top five magazines, "Harper's Bazaar" and "Marie Claire". Before the Olympics, Zheng Qinwen appeared on the Balenciaga show.

It can be said that everything from her dark skin, fit body to her international temperament and conversation style has a price tag.

A large advertisement of Zheng Qinwen is posted on the streets of Shanghai

This is a good thing, but also a good thing with a hint of worry.

Just one day after Zheng Qinwen lay on the ground to celebrate his Olympic victory, on the same Roland Garros stadium, the 37-year-old veteran Djokovic defeated Carlos Alcaraz, also 21 years old, and won the men's singles Olympic championship with difficulty.

His career is the same age as his rival Zheng Qinwen. In 21 years, he has won 24 Grand Slam titles, 7 year-end finals titles, 40 ATP1000 Masters titles, 15 ATP500 titles, and 12 ATP250 titles, totaling 98 ATP singles titles. The only thing he didn't win was the Olympic gold medal.

Before winning last night, he had competed in the Olympics four times but failed each time. This year was his fifth time. After winning the championship, he knelt on the clay, cried with his face up, and achieved his first personal Grand Slam (four Grand Slam singles titles + Olympic champion).

Over the years, he has received the most negative responses on social networks and is the most unpopular tennis player; in real life, he is unpopular with the audience and often faces the embarrassing situation of being on the "global away court".

Despite this, in the 12 months from September 2022 to August 2023, Djokovic's tennis income ranked first in the world, including $13.4 million in prize money and $25 million in commercial income, with an on-court: off-court ratio of nearly 1:2.

He left many golden quotes for the tennis world, one of which goes like this:

“A boat doesn’t sink because of the water around it, it sinks because of the water that goes into it. Don’t let your surroundings get inside you and drag you to the bottom.”

For new boats like Zheng Qinwen that are just beginning to ride the waves, this is the best advice, both on and off the track.

Author of this article | Half Moon | Yixing | responsibilityEditor | Xu Tao

Editor-in-Chief | He Mengfei | Image source |VCG