His manager Tony Godsick once predicted that he would be even more successful in his second career than in his first. There is a lot to be said for it, because Roger Federer leaves nothing to chance.
In 2005 Roger Federer is traveling in South Africa for his foundation, which wants to break new ground in development aid.
Many celebrity foundations simply hand out money. This is good for the image and also helps to optimize taxes. Whoever benefits from the grants, it often seems, is of secondary importance.
The Roger Federer Foundation is different. After years of detailed work, their employees developed their own program to prepare children in six southern African countries for the start of school. It includes country-specific courses, an app for measuring learning progress and offline tablets with learning content that can also be used by educators who can hardly read and write themselves.
An enormous effort, pursued with the aim of creating something new in development aid of all things, in a sector that is farmed by significantly larger organizations. Federer’s foundation already illustrates how the former tennis player will function as a businessman. He is also obsessed with ambition outside of sport, almost a perfectionist – and he has the tendency to pay meticulous attention to detail instead of giving his employees free rein.
Federer leaves nothing to chance, as those involved describe it. He wants to be informed about every step and spares no effort. “Roger leads by thinking his way into decisions and influencing them,” says the head of the foundation, Janine Handel, “he is accessible at all times.” Over the past few years, she has repeatedly discussed new ideas with him for hours. He never missed the official meetings of the board of trustees. There were also multi-day project visits. All of this in times when his tournament calendar was still full.
Recently, the question of when the 41-year-old will resign has become increasingly irrelevant. He had long since made the smooth transition to becoming a businessman.
Years ago his manager Tony Godsick predicted that he would be even more successful in his second career than in the first. That’s a high claim, after all, Federer was one of the best players to ever set foot on a tennis court. And there are only a few global sports icons who manage to achieve such extraordinary things even after retiring that they can save their public status for a new life.
Many limit themselves to thriving on their waning popularity. Others work as trainers or television experts with reasonable effort. In contrast, Federer already seems as if he wants to prove to his manager that he was once right. He doesn’t want to sit back.
Financially, the course has been set. Federer’s income has long been decoupled from his sporting performance. The time since his last Grand Slam title in January 2018 in Australia has been unspectacular for him on the court, but according to the list of “Forbes” magazine from 2020, he earned $ 106.3 million within a year, more than anyone other athletes.
Never since the introduction of the highly acclaimed ranking in 1990 has a tennis player outperformed all footballers, basketball players and golfers. Even for 2021, when Federer hardly played tennis due to knee surgery, his earnings were estimated at $90 million.
Sponsors swear allegiance to him
Several of his most important sponsors will continue to support him. One of the most important lenders, Credit Suisse, gave an oath of loyalty on request as early as 2021. “Long-term and sustainable commitments are our priority,” said a spokeswoman for the big bank. “The partnership between Roger Federer and Credit Suisse is long-term and will last beyond his tennis career.” Federer will be supported in the implementation of his personal ambitions and projects as well as as an entrepreneur.
The same goes for Uniqlo. When Federer launched his ten-year collaboration with the clothing brand in 2018, which is expected to bring him $300 million in total by 2028, he was already thinking well beyond the end of his career. After meeting Uniqlo President John Jay, he said: “One day I will retire from tennis, but not from life.”
The Swiss has risen to the spheres of basketball player Michael Jordan. Even its name is a global brand that outshines the sport. Everything Jordan-related continues to monetize almost unchanged eighteen years after the company’s final retirement. Something similar is also possible for Federer – although the parallels also end quickly. Jordan was recently characterized in the Netflix documentary “The Last Dance” as a self-absorbed selfish person who doesn’t care about much around him. Federer craves control.
“He is willing to do a lot more than what is in the contract”
An example: the tennis player has been promoting holidays in Switzerland since 2021. Federer is staged in short films as a symbol of the country, natural and relaxed. Which did not detract from his previous perfectionism. “He has very precise requirements as to what tonality the spots should have, what content, what humor,” says a spokesman for Switzerland Tourism. Federer wanted to know in which context the quotes he had already released would be used.
In one of those spots whose content was so important to Federer, he suggested to Robert De Niro that they parachute down in a meadow full of cows. The actor declines and recommends that Federer contact Tom Hanks instead. The tennis player asks back: “With whom?”
Roger Federer with Robert De Niro.
Before the collaboration, Switzerland Tourism agreed an annual fee with the tennis player and, in return, certain minimum services. That would hardly have been necessary. “He’s willing to do a lot more than what’s in the contract,” says the spokesman for the marketing organization.
Federer will have to learn to set priorities. How he goes about it is still unclear. One of his business confidants says: “He doesn’t yet know exactly what he wants to focus on in the future.” It can be quite tricky to find a balance between the family with four children and entrepreneurial activities.
Back in 2013, Federer founded the agency Team 8 together with his manager Godsick, which will continue to look after prominent athletes even after his resignation. Tennis players Juan Martín del Potro and Coco Gauff and ice hockey goalkeeper Henrik Lundqvist are currently under contract. Added to this is the Laver Cup organized by Team 8. Godsick still holds the reins in the agency. It is possible that Federer will help him more actively in the future.
A business partner of Roger Federer: Tony Godsick (middle), on his left is Federer’s wife Mirka.
The 41-year-old is also likely to become even more involved in his foundation in the future. “That could be a focus,” says his confidant.
there is enough work. By 2025, the institution, which says it has already reached 1.5 million children, wants to make the new educational program accessible to just as many young people. In doing so, it relies on cooperation with local partner organizations. It is also necessary to convince the authorities, because they should also take responsibility. The head of the foundation, Janine Handel, says: “We are very ambitious in our strategy, the risk of failure is greater.” But she is convinced that the great effort of the own program is worthwhile in the end.
Because of his On shares: Federer’s fortune fluctuates every day
Federer has earned $130 million in prize money in his career. Estimates of his fortune, which came about to a much greater extent through sponsorship income, differ widely. One thing is certain: on September 15, 2021, he surpassed all the income on the tennis court in one fell swoop. On that day, the shoe company On went public.
When Federer became an investor in On in November 2019, the company was valued at a maximum of $2 billion. The amount of his entry fee remained secret. However, a company spokeswoman explains: “It was a significant investment for him and for On.” Federer himself told the “NZZ am Sonntag” at the time: “The chunk was big enough that I had to think about it carefully.”
After the IPO in New York, On shares shot up by 46 percent. In one fell swoop, the young Swiss company was worth $11 billion, five and a half times what it was when Federer joined. What that means for him can be illustrated with a simple calculation: If the tennis player had originally invested 75 million, his share would suddenly have been worth more than 400 million.
Michael Jordan became a billionaire in his second career. The acquisition of the Charlotte Hornets in 2010 proved to be a decisive step, and the value of the team has increased significantly since then. However, he only officially managed to break the billion mark in 2015, twelve years after the end of his career as a basketball player. Federer could already have done this thanks to his on-investment – as an active athlete. From a purely financial point of view, the On participation is more important to him than any Wimbledon victory.
However, Federer currently only has the money on paper. Shortly after the IPO, the company lost significantly in value, since then the share has fluctuated considerably. For Federer this means: His fortune changes every day. It seems conceivable that some days he might wake up a billionaire and others not.
Federer is also actively involved with On. Again and again he is involved in video conferences, occasionally also personally on site. Insiders say that he is demanding when working together and that he can push employees in front of him because he sometimes demands a high pace. The company spokeswoman says: “Roger has become part of the On team and it works extremely well. As a sports team, we set ourselves fast and high goals together. Together we were able to develop the shoe ‘The Roger Pro’ within just two years.»
In this case, the perfectionism is understandable. It’s a lot of money for him.