Which sponsor has won the most in tennis?

Roger Federer in New York promoting Nike's Tennis Launch in 2009. (Getty Images for Nike)

In team sports, every player is dressed identically, fans in the stands don their jerseys, and for most sports, it's the most popular piece of merchandise.

In tennis, it's different.

Each player has their own sponsor, and depending on their success, they may even receive personalised custom gear.

Sometimes they make a big statement, like in 2015 when Nike launched their fluoro line of tennis gear, where their athletes were dressed head to toe in bright colours such as green, yellow and orange, while other brands adopted more toned-down colours that stood out less.

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At Wimbledon, of course, every player is dressed in all white, and for the French and US Open, the brands still tend to go for basic looks.

But at the end of the day, we focus more on the athlete than the brand, so which sponsor has won the most in tennis?

Now, most people in my life will tell me I'm not a fashion guru at all, even though I would argue jeans and a hoodie is a very fashionable look, but I'm not here to rank the sponsors based on looks.

This ranking is based on which sponsors won by selecting the right players.

Overall, there isn't a debate for which brand wins when it comes to Grand Slams, with Nike holding the lead with 94, as they've at times housed Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras, Maria Sharapova and many notable tennis names.

But if this were based on the quantity of major titles won, it would be a pretty short article. This is about which sponsors selected the best players at the best possible time.

Even by using that logic, Nike is still a standout as they had three of the best players to ever play the sport sign up at the same time.

It started off when they signed Federer in 1994 as a junior when he was only 13. It may have taken nearly a decade for the investment to pay off on the biggest stages, but once the first payout came, the dividends rolled in for years to come.

It started in 2003 when he won his first Wimbledon title, and then 15 years later, he would win his 20^th major while still wearing Nike gear at the Australian Open.

That in itself was a huge win for Nike, because Federer is widely regarded as the most liked tennis player there has ever been, but just when Nike had it all, negotiations flamed out, and midway through 2018, the pair split.

Nike decided that resigning Federer wasn't a priority as he was nearing the end of his career and therefore lowballed him, allowing for Uniqlo to swoop in, where they signed him up on a 10-year $300 million deal.

But as most know, after his 2018 triumph in Australia, Federer never won a major again, and in 2022, he retired, meaning that all 20 of his majors he was associated with Nike.

While Nike were profiting off the success of Federer when he won, what made it even sweeter for them is when he didn't win, their next best athlete in Nadal, did.

Like Federer, Nadal signed with Nike when he was just 13, and for his entire career, he was wearing the iconic tick.

In 2005, the Spaniard won his first Slam, which of course was Roland-Garros, and like Federer, the wins kept coming.

Nadal's only success was at Roland Garros at the beginning, but in 2008, he won Wimbledon in what is still regarded as the greatest ever tennis match, where he defeated, you guessed it, Federer.

In fact, between 2006-2011, Nike's two signature tennis athletes would meet seven times at a major final.

Essentially, Nike had a monopoly on men's tennis in the early 2000's which saw them as a big winner.

What makes Nike's dominance even clearer, however, is that on the women's side, they had the best player under contract.

In 1995, Serena Williams went pro and signed a contract with Puma, where, while wearing the brand, she won her first major.

However, once it became clear that she was the future of women's tennis, Nike brought out their big chequebooks.

In 2003, Puma simply couldn't match Nike's offer as Williams signed a five-year $40 million deal, which at the time, was the biggest endorsement contract ever for a female athlete.

So clearly having three of the four best players of the last 25 years makes Nike the clear winner when it comes to sponsors. They are in a league of their own in all sports when it comes to this, but who's next in line?

Like most sports, it's a two-horse race, as next up is Adidas, and when it comes to the number of majors they've won, it's still less than half of what Nike has, but with 45, it still easily trumps the other competitors.

Yet unlike Nike, they do tend to have a lack of star power.

Sure, they had Steffi Graf for her entire career, which included 22 majors and the record for most weeks at No.1 in the world at 377, but outside of her, there are a handful of players who have won multiple majors in Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg and Justine Henin, but they certainly don't boast the same catalogue of players like Nike.

But where you can dock Adidas some points, and you could argue that maybe they haven't been the second most successful brand, is when you consider that they lost Novak Djokovic just after he had won his first major in 2008.

Being content with having stars like Andy Murray, Fernando Verdasco and Ana Ivanovic under contract, Adidas decided not to match Italian sportswear brand Sergio Tacchini's offer, and in doing so, they lost the only real competitor they had to match Nike's firepower.

On sheer numbers, Adidas stands second, but you could make the case that Japanese brand Uniqlo, business-wise, comes in at second place.

From 2012-2017, Uniqlo's marquee player was Djokovic, whose prime had just started, meaning he won eight majors while wearing their apparel and put them on the map.

The company decided, once his contract was up, that they weren't going to be as focused on elite performance wear for athletes and let him walk, but less than a year later, they replaced Djokovic with none other than Federer.

While Federer didn't win any majors while wearing the brand, his reputation alone was enough to benefit Uniqlo, and ultimately, since 2012, either Djokovic or Federer has been their poster boy, which, if we're strictly talking tennis, is a massive win.

So, while Adidas has the accomplishments, Uniqlo is just above them simply because they've arguably had the greatest and second greatest players ever as the face of their brand.

After that, there are numerous brands that have had some success in tennis, such as Fila with Ash Barty, or New Balance now with Coco Gauff, but most notably is Lacoste, which has had Djokovic since 2017, seeing him win 14 majors with the brand.

To no real surprise, Nike is by far and away the biggest winner in tennis, and with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner both with them, they're set for another dominant decade, just like they had with Nadal and Federer.

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