this news came out a couple of years ago..but surely the trend is changing now..here's the story..very long..so might take u some time to finish reading it..
Roddick Beats Federer -- Not on Court, but in Endorsements
Switzerland's Federer May Be Top-Ranked Tennis Pro, but America's Roddick Seems to Dominate Ads
By JOHN MARTIN
NEW YORK, Aug. 27, 2005
Switzerland's Roger Federer may be the top-ranked tennis player in the world but America's Andy Roddick appears to be winning the race to the bank with lucrative endorsements.
On billboards, buses, bus stops, and subway cars and platforms in Melbourne, Australia; Paris; and London, Roddick's image has dominated the advertising messages displayed this year around the world's major international tennis championships.
Federer, while holding endorsements from one major sports apparel company, Nike, a major tennis company, Wilson, and three Swiss companies, is far less visible.
This, despite the fact that the 24-year-old Federer has beaten 22-year-old Roddick in all five championship finals they've played. In 11 tournament matches against Federer, Roddick has won only once, and that was two years ago in Montreal.
Roddick Is Everywhere
Yet now, amid the fanfare of the 2005 U.S. Open here in New York, Federer -- while making the television rounds, such as ringing the NASDAQ opening bell -- seems overshadowed, while Roddick is everywhere.
For American Express, Roddick glances out at Big Apple subway passengers under a tag line: "Has anybody seen Andy's mojo?"
For Lexus, Roddick stares down at visitors to a luxury automobile display just inside the gates of the National Tennis Center, where hundreds of thousands of patrons stroll during the tournament's two long weeks. He stars in a series of Lexus television commercials.
And for Lacoste, the French sportswear company, a giant image of Roddick smashes a backhand from atop a new Lacoste store at the side of Arthur Ashe stadium..
"He's close to $10 million per year," said Kenneth Meyerson of SFX Tennis, the sports marketing company which negotiates contracts for Roddick.
To be sure, Federer has earned almost twice the career tournament prize money ($18,236,073) as his erstwhile rival Roddick ($9,273,266). So far this year, Federer's earnings ($4,140,518) are almost four times greater than Roddick's ($1,526,385).
Federer's business affairs are managed by his mother, Lynette Federer, in Switzerland. His contracts include endorsements by three Swiss companies -- watchmaker Maurice Lacroix, food products distributor Emmi and Swiss International Airlines.
In May, the Federer team switched public relations consultants. An e-mail request to Lynette Federer for an estimate of the value of her son's current endorsements was not immediately answered.
For tennis fans, it is Federer's on-court skills that draw respect. But for corporate executives, it is Roddick's perceived ability to move merchandise that earns endorsements.
"You just have an easier product to market," says SFX's Meyerson, who may be unjustifiably modest, having negotiating deals for Roddick with Rolex, Parlux (fragrances), Babolat (racquets, shoes, strings), Microsoft X-Box and Sega, among other products.
Lacoste Deal
But the Lacoste deal has a special meaning. The company has a fabled name in tennis, but an indifferent marketing record in recent years.
"We were in discussions with Lacoste for 12 months," Meyerson said in an e-mail message.
When the deal was struck, it seemed an odd fit: Instead of Federer, who speaks four languages and dresses in stylish Continental suits, it was Roddick, a Nebraska-born American who previously wore John Deere-style caps and black sneakers. Suddenly, it was Roddick who appeared in an all-white, French-manufactured tennis outfit adorned with a familiar green alligator.
Yet the Lacoste-Roddick deal has a precedent involving the United States and the French company's namesake, Rene Lacoste, the world's top player in 1926 and one of four countrymen who dominated Davis Cup competition in the 1920s.
As a player, Lacoste revolutionized tennis wardrobes by borrowing a friend's polo shirt and putting his trademark alligator emblem on the chest. The idea for the logo came to Lacoste when a Boston sportswriter wrote that he covered the court "like an alligator," meaning he easily reached shots on both sidelines.
So perhaps it isn't surprising after all that the French company chose an American player to help restore the lost luster of Lacoste clothing.
"I just had to buy something for my grandmother," explained Seamus Heaney, a 25-year-old shopper holding a Lacoste baseball cap for Roddick to autograph at the opening of a Lacoste boutique at the Macy's department store at New York's Herald Square.
Heaney's grandmother, a Connecticut resident, is an avid tennis fan, but her grandson says he isn't sure she is a Roddick admirer. But when he saw a sign proclaiming Roddick's presence at the shop's opening, he said, "I knew I should buy something here for her."
Roddick was the accidental beneficiary.
'Who's Roger Federer?'
Federer, who is becoming better known after winning three Wimbledon titles, is still by no means a household name.
When he visited NASDAQ headquarters and appeared on a CNBC business program, he was invited to step outside so photographers could take his picture in front of the stock market's Times Square headquarters.
On the sidewalk, a bicycle messenger stopped to watch. Diaby Oumar, a native of Mali, was asked if he would like to shake the hand of Roger Federer.
"Who's Roger Federer?" he asked.
"He's the number one tennis player in the world," came the answer.
With that, Oumar stepped forward and the two men looked awkwardly at each other. Shutters clicked. The moment passed, and Roger and Diaby went their separate ways.
"Image is everything," Andre Agassi once proclaimed (in a television commercial for a camera). Yet, the lopsided rivalry in which Federer wins championships and Roddick wins endorsements suggests that images are not always what they seem.
that meant that Federer could haf gotten da Lacoste deal..wat a waste..Lacoste would've been makin more cash now wid FedEx..
