How Tennis Stars & Brands Find the Perfect Match

On, Lululemon, and top tennis agent Stuart Duguid discuss the behind-the-scenes strategies to align top players and brands for partner deals.

As On was looking to further its foothold in tennis in 2023, following Roger Federer‘s investment in the European running shoe brand in 2019 and the debut of The Roger lifestyle sneaker in 2021, the company started doing its due diligence on current athletes to add as brand endorsers.

Its early tennis strategy, according to Feliciano Robayna, On Holdings‘ head of athlete management for tennis, was to find talent to help build the brand’s awareness and credibility in the sport while showing how its partnership with Federer could progress.

“We’re always on the lookout for partners and athletes who embody our competitive spirit and share our desire to grow together,” Robayna told Boardroom. “Beyond a player’s performance on the court, we often choose our athlete partnerships with a view to the future. On is a young, vibrant brand, and our athletes should reflect that.”

One of the very first athletes On was looking at in 2023 wasn’t even a pro tennis player yet. Ben Shelton was still a standout rising star at the University of Florida at the time, and Robayna said the company was still waiting to see if he’d go pro or not. That would determine whether it would merely offer an NIL deal or a full-fledged professional contract.

After researching a potential partner’s athlete management team, On typically initiates contact to inquire about the player’s contractual status. If the timing is right and the athlete is eligible to engage with other brands, Robayna and Co. present On’s vision and begin contract negotiations.

“Luckily,” he said, “Ben chose the professional contract and the rest is history.”

On signed Shelton and then-world No. 1 Iga Świątek early in 2023, and inked João Fonseca shortly thereafter. The company then likes to bring partners directly into the R&D and product development process, Robayna added, meeting the demands of athletes before bringing their products to market. The shoes the athletes wear in competition were designed in close collaboration with the players, along with Federer and the team at On Labs.

“It’s been cool to see the growth of myself through On and then also see On’s growth since I’ve been with them,” Shelton said last week at the US Open. “Being their first athlete in tennis or head to toe was a cool opportunity, and I’m excited that I’ve been with them.”

As On was breaking into tennis, Canadian apparel colossus Lululemon was getting more and more feedback from its guests and customers that they were using the brand to achieve peak performance on the court. So, as the brand started to create products specifically for tennis, it started looking for elite brand ambassadors, according to Michelle Davies, Lululemon’s Senior Vice President of Global Sports Marketing, Partnerships, and Social Impact.

Shortly after Lululemon was founded in 1998 in Vancouver, the brand worked with local yoga teachers to provide feedback on what they liked and disliked about the clothing they were wearing. In the more than 25 years since, that same ambassador program has expanded to training, running, and also applied to tennis when the company first started looking for endorsement athletes shortly after the pandemic.

“Ultimately, we are really looking to work with athletes who are pushing boundaries,” Davies told Boardroom. “They’re genuine fans of our brand and our products. That’s really huge for us. We really want to partner with people who we can work with long-term. So, we’ve never been a brand that’s going to sign a whole bunch of athletes. It’s about building really strong, long-term relationships.”

Davies had been friends with Leylah Fernandez‘s agents, and the Canadian star was an ideal fit to expand on Lululemon’s partnership with the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic program. They signed Fernandez in 2022, who was a major presence for Team Canada at the 2024 Paris games, and added a physical retail pop-up at the U.S. Open this year for the first time. When it looked to expand to male players, Davies said, Frances Tiafoe was always at the top of its list.

“He’s such a dynamic athlete on the field of play, but off the field, he loves fashion, he’s got this incredible personality, and he just feels like such a fit,” Davies said. “So he’s definitely someone that we had talked about for some time. It was one of the easiest yeses we’ve ever made.”

Tiafoe left Nike at the end of 2024, and his deal with Lululemon was announced on Jan. 9. Davies said it felt like a true partnership from day one, with the DMV-based tennis great providing real feedback from what he likes and dislikes about the product’s look, performance, and technology. Feedback from Tiafoe, Fernandez, and young American Ethan Quinn can be as minute and detailed as where the tennis balls are going when they put them in their pockets and how the fit feels when the players coil up to serve or hit a killer forehand.

“It matters to us that Frances feels incredible when he puts his product on and when he steps onto the court,” Davies said. “So far, it feels like it’s been great on both sides.”

We’ve now heard from a couple of brands on how they find top tennis players to represent them, but how does one of the sport’s premier agents help align his clients with the right companies? As Naomi Osaka finished up a press conference last week after a win and departed Arthur Ashe Stadium, I caught up with her agent and Evolve co-founder Stuart Duguid, who also represents WTA world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. Pairing your clients with the right companies depends on a combination of timing, leverage, and the player’s stock value.

With Osaka, Duguid told Boardroom, there was a clear strategy from the start.

“When she came out of the blocks pretty early,” he said, “the strategy was to align with Japanese companies to add an international presence.”

The four-time Grand Slam singles champion signed deals with Citizen watches, Nissin Cup Noodles, and Nissan. When she became more of a global superstar, Duguid started looking for more internationally renowned brands like MasterCard and Nike. Now, Osaka and Duguid prioritize partnerships that prioritize deeper relationships and authenticity, only working with brands where she uses or loves the product and wants to invest in it.

For Sabalenka, Duguid described her brand strategy as more of a blank slate because her portfolio isn’t as developed as Osaka’s right now. But that doesn’t mean Sabalenka isn’t doing well for herself. According to Forbes, she has $15 million in endorsement deals from the likes of Nike, Wilson, Audemars Piguet, Whoop, and Master & Dynamic.

“We’re just being very strategic and trying to find brands that will help her storytell,” he said. “Give her more presence in the West and more gravitas. So we’re choosing brands that are either more elevated or the exposure is of the level she deserves.”

For his clients, Duguid prefers to let his players tell him what their hopes and dreams are and work backwards from that. When Osaka wanted to work with Louis Vuitton, he developed a plan for what it would take to get there. It meant finding the right magazines to do interviews with, elevating her profile in the world of haute couture, and building up that gravitas for LV to take notice.

Whether it’s a high-powered agent like Duguid or multi-billion-dollar companies like On or Lululemon, the quest to align brands and athletes with each other is a constant, high-stakes dance behind the scenes that determines what you see when a player competes on the court or poses for a commercial.

“There’s no science to it really,” Duguid said, “but try and be as strategic as we possibly can.”