Over the years, I have written
extensively on athletes as brands and on the power of these brands to
attract sponsorship and endorsement dollars. And whilst professional
golf events around the world continue to pay out millions of dollars per
week, the list of the richest athletes is dominated by footballers,
basketball stars, the odd tennis player and yes indeed, the odd golfer.
According
to Forbes, the 100 top-earning athletes banked more than US$3 billion
over a 12-month period! That is Sh300 billion, about the cost of phase
one of the standard gauge railway!
Forbes lists
football mega-star Christiano Ronaldo as the world’s highest paid
athlete of 2017 with a total income of US$93m (Sh9.3 billion) with about
38 per cent coming from sponsors and licensing.
Whilst
all footballers in the top leagues make descent cash, thanks largely to
revenue streams from TV rights, it is only those at the very top who
manage to differentiate their brands that continue to bank
disproportionately large sums of money.
Ronaldo, LeBron
James, Lionel Messi, Roger Federer and Kevin Durant take up the top
five positions of the Forbes world highest paid athletes 2017 list.
Pro-golfer
Rory McIlroy is the top ranked golfer in sixth place (US$50m) followed
by Phil Michelson in 12th place (US$43.5m). Tiger Woods, now ranked
1,046 on the Official World Golf Ranking, is ranked 17th (US$37.1m).
Since Woods has been inactive on the golf course, 100 per cent of his
earnings can only be from sponsorships and endorsements.
Jordan
Spieth who won The Open Championship a week ago is ranked 21st by
Forbes with total earnings of US$34.5m. Not bad for a 24-year old
athlete who joined the paid ranks hardly five years ago.
Jamaica’s
Usain Bolt raked in US$34.2m (Sh3.42billion) in the last year and he is
the only track and field athlete ranked by Forbes in the top-100.
According to an article published by Claire Thomas in the Telegraph
(UK), Bolt is worth over GBP45m (Sh6.525 billion) with only 38 per cent
of these earnings coming from winning races. As the global ambassador
for Puma, Bolt banks SH450 million per year. He also has endorsement
deals with Nissan, Visa, Gatorade, Virgin Media and Hublot.
Puma’s CEO Jochen Zeitz puts Bolt’s brand marketing value at over GBP277 million (Sh40 billion).
A
few weeks ago, Kenya proudly hosted the IAAF World Under 18
Championships at the Moi Intertnational Sports Stadium, Kasarani. And
although the young Kenyan team didn’t win, eventually finishing fourth,
Kenya was loudly commended for putting on a great show. In the words of
the IAAF President Seb Coe, “This was the best U18 Championships in the
10-year history of the competition.” Lord Coe went on to say that the
Kenyan fans had added much colour and fanfare to the games.
This
week, Kenya’s elite athletes jet off to London for the IAAF World
Championships 2017, and by the way, Team Kenya are the defending
champions, having won the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, China.
The games in London take placeAugust 4-13 , 2017. And whilst it is
unfortunate that the world’s 800m champion, David Rudisha will not be at
the games, on account of a muscle strain, Kenya sends a strong
contingent to the London games nevertheless.
What value
can we attach to our track and field athletes as brands? How can we
better mold our stars, in golf and further afield to become sports
brands?
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