Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka are the reigning champions at the again-to-returned Grand Slam after titles at the U.S. Open in September and the Australian Open in January. It’s been almost 1 / 4 centuries since a man and a woman repeated at the same Slam event; Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf were the last to pull it off in 1995.
Djokovic, 31, and Osaka, 21, are at different career points, with 15 Grand Slam titles, respectively. However, the two have become advertising stars under the banner of the large sports activities corporation IMG, including a legacy that makes IMG Tennis one of the most dominant players in the game.
In recent months, IMG has been racking up wins off the court docket with the advertising explosion of Osaka, the addition of the top-ranked American Sloane Stephens as a customer, and the operation of a transformed Miami Open event, which kicks off the subsequent week at the Hard Rock Stadium, and 19 different events around the sector. The organization also counts fellow tennis endorsement stars Kei Nishikori and Maria Sharapova as customers.
IMG isn’t always resting on its laurels because it seems to make further inroads into the fertile Asian market. “You may have 10 Chinese ladies in the top a hundred inside the subsequent five or six years,” says Max Eisenbud, who runs the purchaser division of IMG Tennis and has overseen the careers of Sharapova and Li Na. The seeds of IMG in Asia hint back 50 years ago, and its recent experience in Asia with Li and Nishikori has helped pave the way for Osaka’s advertising surge.
Li became the first participant from China to win a Grand Slam singles title with her 2011 French Open identify. The Roland Garros was last watched by 116 million people in China, which is consistent with CCTV. Like what IMG and Eisenbud did for Sharapova and her 2004 Wimbledon name, they spun gold out of a surprising Grand Slam win. IMG signed seven new multimillion-greenback offers for Li rapidly after the French Open, pushing her annual off-court docket earnings from $2 million to nearly $20 million.