Luck or Persistence: 5 Lessons We Learned From Tennis Celebrities’ Childhood
The road to success it not paved with roses. Now-famous tennis celebrities sometimes had to put everything at stake to stay in professional sport. Between age 8 and 18, young tennis players need up to $100,000 a year to keep on training. But, as the history shows, sometimes it pays off quite well.
As we at TokenStars aim to disrupt talent sourcing and management so that more talented athletes are given a chance, we get inspired by the stories of tennis superstars when they were teenagers.
Case #1: Maria Sharapova, 5x Grand Slam Champion
At age 9 Maria Sharapova left Sochi and came uninvited to the Nick Bollettieri Academy in Florida. She got accepted, but her father had to work as a dishwasher in the US to pay the bills.
Maria has won five Grand Slam titles (Wimbledon at 17), an Olympic Games silver, 39 tournaments. She has reached WTA#1, earned $36.5 million in prize money, and $285 million in sponsorship deals.
Lesson #1: real talent is worth the risk. And some talented kids really need a little push up to reach the top.
Case #2. Marat Safin, 2X Grand Slam Winner
Another Russian player Marat Safin was turned down by the IMG agency at age 14 and, like many, had to find a sponsor in a hard and humiliating process.
Israeli businessman Bruce Rappaport knew a little about tennis, but agreed to cover Safin’s costs. The player became the ATP #1, won the Davis Cup twice, 17 tournaments, including 2 Grand Slam titles, and was admitted to the Tennis Hall of Fame. He has earned $14.3 million in prize money.
Lesson #2. Traditional talent management agencies can overlook the talent, so tennis needs a more decentralized system of talent sourcing.
Case #3. Mansour Bahrami, Roland Garros finalist
As a kid, the Iranian tennis player Mansour Bahrami could not afford to buy a tennis racquet. He played with a frying pan until the age of 10. He trained in an emptied swimming pool at night because he couldn’t pay for lessons on a court.
Bahrami was lucky to be noticed by the person who became his coach, and he became a professional player and a finalist of the prestigious Roland Garros Grand Slam tournament.
Lesson #3. Promising players need financial support as soon as possible to they can start their career early.
Case #4. Rafael Nadal, Current №1 in Men’s Singles, 15x Grand Slam winner
When Spanish player Rafael Nadal was eight years old, he won a regional championship for players under 12, defeating boys who were three years older. By the time he turned 12, he had won both Spanish and European titles in his age group.
His uncle was a retired pro tennis player and a coach. He was a left-handed player which often confused opponents, with a unique topspin shot rotating up to 5000 rpm. He was born on clay courts. You could see his discipline in training and his energy level on court.
The result — two Olympic gold medals, 84 titles, including 15 Grand Slam titles (including 10 at Roland Garros), and $85 million in prize money
Lesson #4. Nadal’s success was totally predictable — and it happened. But there should be someone to notice the talent and develop it.
Case #5. Kei Nishikori, Current №9 in ATP rankings
The Japanese tennis star Kei Nishikori has sponsorship contracts with Uniqlo ($50 million), Wilson, and Adidas, and has advertising contracts with CupNoodle, Tag Heuer, Weider Supplements, Jaccs, Nissin, EA Games, Air Weave, WOWOW, and others.
Forbes stated that Nishikori earned $3011 million in 2016 (with additional prize money of $3.6 million this year which suggests a rough 1X to 10X ratio for prize money compared to much larger sponsorship deals).
Lesson #5. When becoming famous, tennis players can earn multimillion advertising contracts which can significantly exceed prize money.
All five lessons create a foundation of ACE model. ACE token holders can take 3 roles in the community to help us decentralise talent scouting, support, and promotion using blockchain technology.
Old-fashioned scouting process should be replaced with a decentralized
approach. We believe that the Global Scouting Network of 600 part-time
analysts spread globally and properly motivated financially will be more efficient than the full-time 60 employees focused on making friends with local Tennis Federations’ presidents.
Promoters will manage the players’ fan pages in social networks, regularly updating them with high quality content about the player to grow the fan base. Promoters can be voted out if the community is not satisfied with
the results. Promoters may act as Public Relations Representatives (using press kits produced by ACE) and may pitch players to the local press. Promoters may attract advertisers (using pitch decks produced by ACE).
Analysts will interact with the platform, express their opinion regarding the particular operational issues of the agency’s business through
the decentralized community voting (DCV) mechanism, and get access to all exclusive offers for ACE token holders.
To learn more about TokenStars, visit our website and follow the project’s social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn.
