Donald Dell, tennis’s first player agent and co-founder of the Association of Tennis Professionals, said he expects sponsorship deals to pick up next year as the global economy rebounds.
“It’ll come back in about six months,” the 71-year-old, who began the ProServ management company in 1970 after retiring from the tennis tour, said in an interview yesterday in New York. “Everybody is in a holding pattern.”
It’s been particularly difficult to get new endorsements from financial services companies, said Dell, who joined private equity firm Blue Equity as group president in 2006. Almost 330,000 jobs have been lost in the sector since the global recession began, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.
Golf has this year lost Deutsche Bank AG, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia Corp. and Northern Trust Corp. as tournament sponsors.
“Everybody on that side of the business is scared,” said Dell, who was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame this year.
Former U.S. Davis Cup captain Dell, whose clients have included Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith, said his current crop of players, including Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, has been insulated from the worst of the downturn.
“We’ve kept all our sponsors, but you can’t get new ones,” he said. “They’re sitting and waiting. They’re not cutting back though.”
Maria Sharapova may drop some sponsors in favor of agreements that give the three-time Grand Slam champion a percentage of sales, her agent Max Eisenbud said.
“She wants to focus on deals where she has equity in, where she helps designing, gets a percentage of the sales,” Eisenbud, vice president of IMG Tennis, said in an interview this week in New York.
Sharapova last year made close to $22 million in prize money and endorsements, according to Sports Illustrated.
(Source: Bloomberg)
