WTA ATP Aus Open 1/17 - 1/30 2022

[JTContinental]

After seeing her on-court interview yesterday, I think she's pretty socially awkward

[Deuce]

I'm quite happy that she makes no attempt to be a media darling, and is bad at marketing herself.
We have far too many sell-outs already. Anyone who refuses to sell themselves to the highest bidder is more than ok in my book.
I dislike when people view players who have no sponsors as if they're not 'successful' unless they are sponsored. I love players who have no sponsorships. It tells me that maybe they're not playing for the glory or the fame or to get as financially rich as possible, but are maybe playing for the love of the game. And they might even possess too much integrity to enter into that artificial world.
There are more important things in life than to be a walking billboard.

[ti-amie]

I'm quite happy that she makes no attempt to be a media darling, and is bad at marketing herself.
We have far too many sell-outs already. Anyone who refuses to sell themselves to the highest bidder is more than ok in my book.
I dislike when people view players who have no sponsors as if they're not 'successful' unless they are sponsored. I love players who have no sponsorships. It tells me that maybe they're not playing for the glory or the fame or to get as financially rich as possible, but are maybe playing for the love of the game. And they might even possess too much integrity to enter into that artificial world.
There are more important things in life than to be a walking billboard.

Wanna bet that by IW she'll have a clothing company? And be proud about it?

[Deuce]

I'm quite happy that she makes no attempt to be a media darling, and is bad at marketing herself.
We have far too many sell-outs already. Anyone who refuses to sell themselves to the highest bidder is more than ok in my book.
I dislike when people view players who have no sponsors as if they're not 'successful' unless they are sponsored. I love players who have no sponsorships. It tells me that maybe they're not playing for the glory or the fame or to get as financially rich as possible, but are maybe playing for the love of the game. And they might even possess too much integrity to enter into that artificial world.
There are more important things in life than to be a walking billboard.

Wanna bet that by IW she'll have a clothing company? And be proud about it?

No, I don't want to bet - because I don't know her well enough to know what her plans or priorities are. I can only hope.

I maintain, however, that viewing sponsorships as a measure of 'success' is the product of a culture that is so obsessed with 'celebrity' and so accustomed to greed and excess that whenever it encounters one who has an opportunity to be a human billboard and refuses that opportunity, that individual, rather than being viewed as a person of integrity, is instead deemed 'strange', or even 'stupid', and that there must be 'something wrong with them' for not selling themselves to the highest bidder and obediently jumping through the hoops they're told to jump through and reciting whatever marketing words the sponsor writes for them just for the money "I love XXXXX clothing. It's so stylish and comfortable. I only wear XXXXX on and off the court..." ... It makes me ill.
And they'll change racquets or clothing as soon as another company offers them more money - so much for their 'belief' in the product. It's all so incredibly phony.

And when no sponsorship is offered to a player, that player is viewed as being either 'unsuccessful' or as 'not good enough', or 'must be undesirable'...
That's a large part of how 'success' is measured today.
I think it's sad and pathetic, really.

I love seeing players with an all black racquet and no sponsors on the strings... and no logos on the clothing, or a mix of clothing from different companies. It's such a refreshing damned change from the usual artifice.

[meganfernandez]

I imagine Collins will have a sponsor by Indian Wells, as long as she gets an offer she likes. Wasn't she with New Balance for a while? It's possible that up until now, she just hasn't been offered enough money and is holding out. Good for her, it worked. But I wonder if her on-court personality will be an issue. Really a shame if it is - I know plenty of people who love her, specifically all the women I play tennis with, 20s through 70s. Cressy is holding out because he believes he'll be top 10 and doesn't want to spend time on sponsors until he has more leverage.

[ponchi101]

She was with New Balance indeed.
I say by IW is kind of a long time. If she wins on Saturday, her leverage is automatic, tennis wise. She is a former NCAA player, which makes it a very nice story, and has a lot of appeals for many companies. Clothing is the initial step, but for some of the smaller companies (Lacoste, for example) she would be a great addition.
I mean, #1 American. If you are the #1 player in France, the check is guaranteed, and at least 7 figures. She deserves it completely.

[meganfernandez]

She was with New Balance indeed.
I say by IW is kind of a long time. If she wins on Saturday, her leverage is automatic, tennis wise. She is a former NCAA player, which makes it a very nice story, and has a lot of appeals for many companies. Clothing is the initial step, but for some of the smaller companies (Lacoste, for example) she would be a great addition.
I mean, #1 American. If you are the #1 player in France, the check is guaranteed, and at least 7 figures. She deserves it completely.

Oh, yeah, could be sooner than IW, that's just the next big milestone on the tennis calendar. And only 7 weeks away, really. Pretty soon.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[JazzNU]

I don't think Danielle's on-court personality is the biggest of issues, enough people liked her before despite the intensity and poor sportsmanship, they'll like her even more now that she's winning and climbing the ranks, but her approach overall might be a problem. New Balance was still seemingly behind her after the incident where she broke covid protocols in 2020, but she was still with them last year and was used in their ads and stuff, so them dropping her is a surprise. Now, she was never a marquee to them like Coco is, didn't make it into any commercials that I saw, but she was one of the players they were promoting for sure. So either she wanted more and they wouldn't give it, she wanted to move on to try for a bigger contract with a different name (well done if so), or they didn't think she was a good enough ambassador for their brand. If it's the latter, that's completely justified, she's terrible at promoting the brands she represents.

Her being the #1 American will get something, but not a ton on it's own. Kenin was the #1 American and that hardly opened up the floodgates for her. Super duper quiet really, certainly not helped by the pandemic, but there was a month to gain traction with sponsors after winning, typically an active time as you saw with Emma, and it didn't really happen for her. Danielle is prettier, but Sonya's been much more open off court than Danielle has in many ways. And there is no way all those stories of her as a cute little tennis player meeting some of the tennis greats wasn't the doing of her management team or her agent. And it worked wonders for how people viewed Sonya.

Danielle is marketable, but she needs to get 1000% better at social media. For instance, she has deactivated her account during the Aussie Open. That's not what any brand is interested in, this is their highest traction time. She says she took a page from the USWNT in doing this to stay focused, but that's a misinterpretation or misunderstanding on her part if she thinks this is what they did. No one took down their social media accounts, they just stopped checking it, big difference. Her account likely would've gained 100,000+ subscribers on the low side in the last two weeks if it had been activated. But it's not. She thinks Rose Lavelle grew her IG subscribers by hundreds of thousands waiting until the World Cup was off everyone's mind? Come now. Coco Gauff's numbers skyrocketed that one Wimbledon from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Amanda Anisimova's followers have increased in the neighborhood of 50,000 since the Aussie Open began. It happens in real time, waiting until later is a mistake. And for sponsors, they aren't getting their money's worth if you aren't showcasing their products that well in the time when the most people would look at what you're about, and social media is key to just about any of their strategies.

Danielle's gotten a very late start because of her college career, so it seems to me she shouldn't waste time getting this right. I hope she has hired or will be hiring a team to make the most out of her success. She's been leaving money on the table.

[ti-amie]

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