23 Jan 2025
Dr. Rob Wilson, a professor of economics at Sheffield Hallam University, is one of the leading experts in sports finance. Speaking to Genting Casino, Dr. Wilson has discussed a variety of topics across sport including Luke Littler’s PDC World Championship triumph and Emma Raducanu’s early exit at the Australian Open.
The sport finance expert also discusses the commercialism around Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari and comparisons with four-time world champion Max Verstappen.
Will there still be interest from sponsors in Emma Raducanu if she continues to get knocked out early in major tournaments?
RW: “Emma Raducanu is marketable but the level of that will come down to sporting performance, whether that will be in the top echelons of the sport remains to be seen.
“She certainly has the raw talent, but what we also see in female tennis as compared to male tennis is that you don’t get the same longevity as when you look at Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic – with the expectation of Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova.
“You tend to find that female athletes come and go with tennis, so they'll have two or three years at the top and then that can change.
“I’ll be interested to see if we're still talking about Emma Raducanu in seven or eight years' time as an elite tennis player that's qualifying routinely for ATP and Grand Slams, even if she doesn't win them.”
Would you suggest that she focuses on her tennis more and drops obligations with current partners to keep her brand going?
RW: “Emma Raducanu will keep hold of sponsors at the moment because she is very marketable and speaks very well, she’s a sponsor's dream.
“They can activate that even when she’s not winning tournaments because she is very recognisable and has the right personality.”
Has Novak Djokovic passed Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as the biggest commercial asset in the history of men’s tennis?
RW: “Novak Djokovic has passed Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal when it comes to winning Grand Slams, but I don’t think he’ll ever reach their level in terms of public profile and endorsement rights.
“It will be interesting to see how the young wave of talent like Carlos Alcaraz will compete with him because Federer and Nadal had each other and then Djokovic and Murray to a lesser extent. At the moment Djokovic doesn’t have that level of competition.”
With Andy Murray coaching Novak Djokovic, should we be keeping an eye on how Murray’s brand develops during his time as a coach?
RW: “It’s interesting to see Andy Murray doing something different and maybe this is the direction he wants to take for the next 10 or 15 years, it’s a great platform.”
Luke Littler won £1 million at 18 as the most successful teen sportsman ever? Is he set for life before he’s 20?
RW: “It depends what you think set for life is, he will probably have made £2million before he turns 19 and could live off the interest alone.
“But it depends on how much he wants to spend and what he wants to do with his money. What we can say is that we’ve never seen anything like this in sport before, being so accomplished at his age and already a world champion.
“He has huge potential when it comes to career earning capacity but the nature of darts means that he won’t ever be able to exceed some of the football greats we’ve seen down the years in terms of numbers, or even F1 greats.”
Would it be in Max Verstappen’s interests financially to move to Aston Martin compared to staying at Red Bull?
RW: “Money talks, doesn't it, in every walk of life and if you wave a big enough carrot at the end of a stick, people have their price.
“I think Max Verstappen has had quite a checkered career so far. There are issues that have gone on at Red Bull and there were issues with him as an individual driver that would suggest to me that he wouldn't be adverse to a move.
“If there was a very, very lucrative one on the cards, I think he might look at it seriously. What I would say is I think he also has quite a big ego. So he wants to be crowned the greatest driver of all time.
“So he will look very closely at the standard of the car and whether that can be a championship winning vehicle for him.
“For Lewis Hamilton, towards the end of his career, he clearly was not winning races with Mercedes and then thought, you know what is really good brand alignment for me going to Ferrari.
“It's iconic, the brand value is massive the car might be competitive and I'll take a risk on it Max obviously is at a different stage of his driving career so I don't think Aston Martin is sufficiently competitive for that but if there's enough zeros on the end of the paycheck then it might be something he looks at.”
Who has the greater pull for sponsors, Hamilton or Verstappen?
RW: “Max Verstappen is absolutely the next wave of that talent that's coming through and Lando Norris is probably going to be up there as well. If Max were to get close to Lewis Hamilton's driving success or indeed exceed it then I think he would be more valuable in the marketplace than Hamilton was for two reasons.
“One is you've got the Hamilton benchmark, so Max can use that to work out all of his commercial endorsements and the time value of money. More money is going into sport now than it was when Hamilton started his career so your earning capacity and your earning potential is also higher.
“As of this moment, I don’t think F1 needs Lewis Hamilton anymore.”
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