Longevity and Exhibition Revenue

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods Market, no antibiotics ever burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. Fire up a juicy ribbeye. Grab creamy potato salad and savory flatbreads from the prepared foods department, and round it all out with three hundred sixty five brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices Whole Foods Market. Make your summer sizzle. If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business Remember this number tenen thousand the number of new businesses that join Odu per month Join Odoo today at Odoo. com ODWo. com It's nineteen ninety three, a twelve year old boy stands on a baking hot tennis court in Basel, Switzerland. He's lanky, but still stands barely taller than a net. He's just lost a set, he starts screaming. Swear words are flying out of his small boy's mouth as he slams his racket on the ground. He looks out to the stands and sees his mum and dad get up and leave, shaking their heads in shame quivers and he starts to cry. I have to change, he tells himself. I can't keep losing my head. And he will change. He will become known as the most elegant and composed player in history Of course for our purposes, the highest paid. Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode, we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money. We take them from zero to their first million and then from a million onto a billion. My name is Xingg Singg and I'm a journalist author and podcaster. And I'm Simon Jack. I'm the BBC's businessiness editor. I'm a fan of tennis And there is few better sights in all of sport, I would say than watching Roger Federera play at his peak. Have you ever seen him play in the flesh? Yes, I have. It looks effortless and yet the speed the ball goes and the shots he plays, it's really remarkable. He's not hasn't won the most grand slams in history, but many would say he won them the most stle, But he retired in twenty twenty two after a twenty five year professional career, paid one thousand seven hundred and fifty competitive matches across singles and doubles And he won twenty Grand Slams singles titles, two Olympic medals, He holds a record for most Wimbledon Championships with eight under his belts. We should probably explain what the Grand Sams are. So that's Wimbledon, the US openpen The French open and the Australian open. There's four of them. Well, the prizes in tennis are big and he has won over a hundred million dollars in prize money. But as you can tell, that's nowhere near a billion. But in twenty twenty five, he was declared a billionaire worth one point one billion dollars. and according to Forbes, this makes him only the seventh athlete to join the Billionaire Club. So how did he make that much? Well, let us travel back in time to find out Roger Federert was born in nineteen eighty one and grew up in suburban Basel, Switzerland. It was a middle class family, one older sister, his father and mother both worked at a pharmaceutical company, and the family spent weekends at the company's tennis club, and his parents both competed non professionally. So tennis was kind of in their blood. Yeah, and he was a fast learner. hisis mother said that Roger had unbelievable coordination from the very beginning saying that at age one He could kick a soccer ball in your direction. We noticed this, but we didn't push him all the major decisions of his sports career. He took himself He h had his first tennis ball over the net age three. doesn't quite beat Tiger Woods' first game of golf for eighteen months old But at nineteen eighty five Age four he watched Boris Beckca win Wimbledon. I remember that match. a seventeen year old qualifying Beckca shock the world. Beckca became his idol and he apparently cried when Boris lost in nineteen eighty eight and nineteen nineteen. According to his mum He was very vibrant, a bundle of energy, sometimes very difficult. In fact, he could be impulsive and competitive and he had to keep moving, otherwise he became unbearable. Something that I think a lot of athletes have in common, you know, that constant urge to move when they're a kid. that has to be channeeled somewhere somehow. Well, Roger was athletic. He loved many different sports as a child, especially football, which he played for years alongside tennis. There's an alternate universe where Roger Federer is are one of Europe's greatest footballers I think. But Roger told biographer Renee Stoffer I liked tennis the best of all sports. It was always exciting and winning and losing was always in my hands. Now that's very interesting that because basically on any given point there's a winner and a loser. So you've got a series and because of the very clever scoring system in tennis, there's kind of like a climax at a cliff edge lots of them all of the time. so it does Keep your attention very much. It's one of the things that makes the game so fantastic to watch At the age of eight, his mother felt Roger had outgrown the club where he played, so she enrolled him in an elite junior program at the oldld Bys' tennis cllub in Basil. He trained in a group three times a week by his coach Adolf Kakkovsky, nicknamed Sppli, noticed his talent right away so he started privately coaching him, which was partly funded by the club. Seeply said, Roger was a quick learner when he wanted to teach him something new, he was able to pick it up after three or four tries while others in the group needed weeks, so clearly really physically gifted. And a very confident young man. he would tell people at the club that he would win Wimbledon one day. Sepply said that people laughed at him, including me honest him. I thought that he would possibly become the best play in Switzerland, maybe Europe, but not the best in the world And at this point, he was already playing in tennis tournaments at the weekends, starting to make a bit of a name for himself, age eleven. a tennis magazine wrote a small feature on him after he reached the semifinals of the Basel Youth Cup At age twelve, he decided to fully commit to tennis, stop playing other sports. and started weekly fitness training. Meanwhile, his school studies were not exactly taking priority Now for a kid his age, this was serious dedication to tennis, but in Roger's words, I was conscientious, but I didn't like to train. I often had problems getting motivated. I was a match player. Well he was also known as a hothead who let his emotions overwhelm him. He would cry when things didn't go his way or swear and throw his racket across the court His parents were embarrassed by this behavior and he was told to stop it or they wouldn't come to his tournaments. Roger knew he had to count down, but in his words, that was an extremely long process. I believe that I was looking for perfection too early. O just being a bit of a brat, whichich let's face it is not unknown in Tennessee. Exactlyly. And some people never grow out that. No, I mean, yes, McNroe, of course, his predecessor, well known for his antics on court as a fully grown adult. nevermind as a child Anyway, he then got another coach at the club, an Australian called Peter Carter. and Peter focused on Roger's mental state, explaining how much energy was lost by throwing tantrums And Roger attributes both his technique and his coolness, which he became known for eventually to Peter And he started winning He won national titles and by age fourteen, he was the national junior champion in Switzerland. I think that's a really good way of reframing a temper tantrum. You're going to lose so much energy on this stuff. Why not just confrine this? Try that with children. Well, because of this success, at the age of fourteen, he was invited to join the Swiss National Tennis Center Mentoring prorogram, which was funded by the Swiss Tennis Federation The center was in the French speaking town of Ecublas, on the edge of Lake Geneva, two hundred kilometers from Basel. He initially told his parents he didn't want to go. It is a very long way away. But then he changed his mind. So Roger moved in with a local family. The two older children had already left home and they wanted a companion for their boy. Now Roger was Swiss German and didn't speak a word of French, so got pretty homesick being away from his parents for weeks on end He was the youngest on the programe, which made him the worst at tennis. And the language barrier was difficult at training. He was also struggling at his new school. He had no interest in academic learning. He cried a lot. We've heard that a lot, haven't we? crying and described the first few months in Eoulin as some of the worst in his life. But he didn't leave He said he was close many times, but slowly he settled into the routine of his new life. And slowly he started dominating again at tournaments. In nineteen ninety seven at the age of fifteen, he won the Swiss National eighteen and under Championship. That's amazing because when you're developing, the difference in fifteen and eighteen physically can be really quite significant. So to win an eighteen and under tournent at the age of fifteen is pretty impressive. Well he was now ranked number eighty six at Switzerland which meant he was promised more financial support from the Swiss tennis Federation. And at the age of sixteen he finished school and received his first rollld ranking at number eight hundred and three. And so he set his sights beyond Switzerland. Yes, he left Ecublin and moved to the Swiss National Training Center in the city of Bel. whichich was much closer to his parents. He moved into an apartment with a friend who was a player. hisis former coach Peter was also at the new center and that made Roger much more comfortable, much happier. In nineteen ninety eight, Roger won the Junior Wimbledon singles and doubles titles. This was a big deal, but it wasn't a very big financial victory. Junior Grand Slam events do not receive prize money. They're considered development competitions. So to start earning actual cash, he needed to go professional. So at age seventeen, he played his first ATP tournament. that's the Association of tenennis Professionals, the adult prorofessional tennis circuit And he made it to the quarter fininals in Toulouse And the prize money for coming that far was ten thousand US dollars. So Roger was starting to make money from tennis. It also meant he jumped up the world rankings to number three hundred ninety six. He leapfrogged over four hundred eighty two players and he finished that year as the world number one ranked junior and was named a world junior champion. So he's gone as far as he can in the junior ranks Then in nineteen ninety nine Turning eighteen, he started his first ATP tour He wasn't exactly successful his French open and Wimbledon debuts, he was beaten in first rounds, but the Grand S slam tournaments do pay well and even going out so early earned him twenty grand across both tournaments And he started doing better throughout the rest of the year, earning around two hundred twenty five thousand dollars in prize money. He ended the year ranked number sixty four in the world, the youngest player to finish in the top one hundred. And that is a big deal. But Roger was bemused by his newfound status. He said, I've noticed that the more well known one becomes, the less one has to pay. Everybody wants to invite me and everyone wants to be nice to me just because I can play tennis well. Yeah, you think? Yes, free to those that could afford it. veryery expensive to those that can't. His next year, two thousand brought more money, more recognition, he reached the semifinals at the Sydney Olympics, didn't get him a medal, but brought him greater name recognition And also brought him something perhaps more important, love On the last day of the Olympics he kissed Merka Vavrnetsz, a member of Switzerland's women's Olympic tennis team and they started dating. Merka had to retire from tennis in two thousand two due to a foot injury, which put her into a deep hole of depression, she said. But she said Roger was my greatest support back then. He gave my tennis life back to me because when he wins, if I win as well. It's very funny because it really reminds me of her recent tennis movie Challengers. Have you watched that? No So it's basically about a woman who has to retire from tennis professionally because she has a huge injury and she pours all her energy into coaching her husband against his great rival who is also an ex boyfriend of hers. Oh wow. It must have been based on this slightly. Yeah. And also I do remember one of my memories of his long and illustrious playing career was seeing Mera in the players' box for many years. She was thereayer at pretty much every match And you could tell that she was very involved, she was an ever present character on the court. Well, let's get back to two thousand. Roger' eighteen, he's turning nineteen. It's his second year playing professionally. So he was doing well in competitions. He finished the year ranked number twenty ninth in the world The tenennis schedule is very busy. That year he played in twenty four tournaments as a singles player and nineteen as a doubles player. and depending on how well he did, he earned anywhere between five grand to fifty grand per tournament. So this meant that by the end of two thousand, he'd earn over six hundred thousand dollars nearly triple the prize money from his rookie year. so he's stacking up the cash bit by bit paying his dues, but he still hadn't won a major tournament as a professional, so he hadi a new fitness coach, he spent the year working hard on fitness, got a new tennis coach to replace Peter Carter, another Peter, Peter Lundren And Peter number two, Lundgrren, that is, saying Roger is not a workaholic that you can hit three thousand backhands to and he hits them and feels good doing it. Training has to be fun for Roger. I identify with that Yes, mee too, actually The grand slam will come calling any minute Well the training slowly paid off for Roger. In two thousand one he won his first tournament, Milan Indoor. and later that year he beat one of the most successful and celebrated tennis players in history, the world number one and defending champion, Pete Sampras in the fourth round at Wimbledon, which brought him international acclaim. I remember that match really well. everyveryone sat up you know friends who are very into tennis and they say this guy is going to be something special. So that was a big moment But tragedy struck in two thousand two when his coach and mentor, Peter Carter, Peter Num onene, died in a car crash in South Africa Roger said, when something like this happens, you see how really unimportant tennis is. It took him time to recover from the loss. But byy the end of two thousand two, he was rack number six in the world and you startop making real money when you're the top ten. He made around one point eight million dollars in prize money But remember, he has quite a lot of outgoing. Tennis operates more like a kind of individual business than a team system, You don't get a salary of courses and you have to pay all your own outgoings like the coach' salary, All yourre entourage, your're nutritious, you're physio. I actually played against a guy when I was a kid called Barry Cowan. I hope he's listening. I was about fifteen and Barry was about six and he was beating me back then He went on to hold Pete Sampras to five sets at Wimbledon one year. And anyway, but I remember watching his career grow. and actually it is grueling being on the road, paying your expenses, your hotels, your trainer, what have you. So you're kind of like a mini, entrepreneur in a way. you're running your own business. He's also taxed on those winnings. So tennis prize money is usually taxed by the host country before the player even receives it. So for Wimbledon, this would mean about forty five percent deducted before he even sees in his bank account. So all of this means that very early on in their careers, tennis players often barely break even. But there's another threshold to break and he was about to do that into the big time. He won his first grand slam. Remember we described those earlier? In two thousand three, he won Wimbledon. Remember he promised to do that? It was laughed that back at the Basel traraining Academy. The prize money was five hundred seventy five thousand pounds then's about just nearly a million dollars He also won the season ending Championship of the Master's Cup. That was another one point fiveal million dollars in prize money. And that year, he earned four million do total across the entire season. So even with tax and bills and expenses We can probably say pretty confidently that by the end of two thousand three, Roger Federer is a millionaire, just twenty one The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods Met, no antibiotics ever burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. Fire up a juicy ribeye, grab creamy potato salad and savory flatbreads from the prepared foods department, and round it all out with three hundred sixty five brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices Whole Foods Market. Make your summer sizzle. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. I'm going to be honest with you. I am online way more than I probably should be. And between me and everyone else at my house, we've got a zillion screens going on at any given moment. So when my internet slows down, it is a full crisis. That's why having fast, reliable internet that can keep up really matters and why you need optimum famously Fast fiber Internet Optimum fiber blows flaky five G out of the water and keeps it cool with the fastest and most reliable speeds that don't slow when things heat up. 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No matter your goals, investing style, life stage, or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place So you can invest your way Visit Schwab. com to learn more Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now Exense reports, receipt chasing, month in close that takes weeks You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building for BreX is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF Learn more at brex d. com slash a Let's take Roger Federer. from a million onto that very rare thing for an athlete In february two thousand four, he became the world number one. and he would maintain that top spot for four and a half years. And if you think about how consistent you've got to be, that's incredible. And over this time, he won many, many more tournaments, his annual yearly prize money was between six and ten million dollars. Now that's a lot of money to win But as we know from this show, that is pocket change to billionaires. There's no way he could ever become a billionaire from prize money alone I vaguely remember Roger Federe at this point having a ponytail. I wasn't a fan of that. I mean I know less about haircuts and fashion than anyone in the world, but even I could tell that was not a good look. I think he's going to have to drop their ponytail if he wants to make it to a billion, I'm afraid. Yeah. Well, when he won Wimbledon in two thousand three, he has deals with Nike and Wilson to give him free clothing and tennis equipment Not much else, but during those years of near total dominance in tennis, Roger became the global face of the sport. And that meant that his earning potential shifted from just being a regular athlete to becoming a powerful brand in and of itself And his journey to being a billionaire is really about the power of sponsorship and endorsement. And tennis is a particularly attractive sport to sponsors. Tennis fans are usually quite ffluent, they have high disposable incomees, so money to spend on whatever product they're endorsing It's also global It's got appeal to audiences in the US, in Europe and Asia. And so in two thousand four, he signed a deal with watchmaker, Maurice Laacroix. brands, tend to be quite a go to thing for male celebrities because it's expensive, but it's one of the few bits of jewelry that men will ever wear. Exactly. I mean for a lot of guys, it's the only accessory they will ever buy. I've noticed something quite interesting happening with men in their thirties. They've started investing in watches. and if you ever want a man to go off on one and you can just sit back and let him take the reins of the conversation, just ask him where his watches from. Oh gosh. Where is your watch from, Sim? Weirdly enough, I do like a nice watch. Anyway, two years later, he switched his allegiance to Rolex. He had to pay Maurice Lacoire an undisclosed breakup fee to end his five year contract with them Redx was and probably still is the biggest luxury watch brand in the world, and it paid him fifteen million dollars for a ten year deal. and that change in sponsorship reflected his new status as the undisputed world number one And before that, he'd relied on a four person team, so a lawyer, financial advisor, his mother who quit her job to help her son full time and his girlfriend Merka, who handled media relations and travel. And this small team handled always contracts, which were deals worth millions, yes, but deals worth about half that of other top athletes in the sports. So when Forbes brought out their two thousand five list of top earning athletes Roger did not make the list despite being the world's number one tennis player. so it's time for a change. Yeah. And he turned to a company called IMG, that's International Management Group, super famous agency for sports stars They manage other people like Andre Agassy, Serena and Venus Williams And with IMG's power behind him, he was able to negotiate some huge global sponsorship deals notot only got better at tennis, it'd also become much more commercially appealing. The ponytail was gone. I was holding him back As were the tantrums, he was now elegant, athletic, handsome charitable he'd set up a foundation to raise money for South African children, so And in a way, unlike many athletes, Federr's image was really between cuts, some might say There I say, bland But that meant he was a pretty safe bet with global appeal. So you know, he's not going to offend anyone. He's not going to get, you know, remember the scandals that Tig Woods went through. that was going to be very unlikely with Roger Federer Exactly. And in fact, IMG had actually managed the career of Tiger Woods and turned him into a poweral for brand. So they've got clout and they began to do the same for Roger positioning him as a luxury global icon. And so this meant fewer deals to maintain his exclusivity, but much higher value per deal in long term partnerships. And over the next few years, Roger signed deals worth millions per year with shaving Brand Gillette Coffee Maker Jura, Car Brand Mercedes, the bank credit suis. I mean, these are all incredibly I would say masculine brands. Well Gillette doesn't get much you know, Gillette the best a man can get. I think that's well known enough for us not toort get into any trouble. And there are lots of billboards and adverts where you would have Tiger Woods alongside Roger Federer, Sort was there, go to pondumit, if you like for channeling Maleness Exactly for that for that clonte. The old cliche of shaving and coffee ads to enhance performance. One thing I remember about Federick is always very keen on his appearance. I remember when he won the fifteenth Grand slam which was to equal or break Pete Sampris's record. He had a special jacket made for himself. He had some very clear ideas about how he wanted to look And like every other athlete we've covered on this show, there's always one name hanging around the hoop and that is Nike. In two thousand eight he renewed his deal with them, signing a ten year contract worth almost one hundred twenty million dollars. His biggest deal, one of the biggest ever for tennis. And that deal made him the highest paid tennis star That very same year Rogel actually lost his hold on the top spot in tennis with Raphael Nadaal overtaking him. and the Nadaal Federer rivalry is, I would say one of the greatest rivalries in any sport. The media could not get enough of it because obviously it's drama, it's changing.' so important that, I think in some sports, like in tennis. So for example you had Borg and McNroe. Then you had McNroe and Lendall and you know, and then Nadal and Federer, having these great rivalaries really kind of captures the imagination. And with Nadal and Federer you had two such different styles. You had the elegant ballerina of Federer and you had the kind of matador charging, heavy thumping, big arms kind of, you know bruiser of Nadal and this kind of light and shade, this kind of contrast was absolutely electrifying as a sporting spectacle. And crucially, you know you can be the best player in the world, but it does get boring for fans and audiences to keep watching you win time and time again. Yeah ye, it sure does. You know, you could argue that rivalry actually increased both of their commercial values because they brought attention to the sport created a narrative that fans would follow whoo was going to beat, who when, where? And for Roger, it probably grew his global brand more than just sole dominance would have. one hundred percent. He was also busy off the court at this point too. In two thousand nine he married Merker and later that year they had identical twin girls. Five years later they had another pair of twins, this time fraternal twin boys God, four kids in the entourage. Well, a full family life did not stop Roger from maintaining supremacy in tennis. By twenty thirteen, he held the records for M Singles Grand Slam wins seventeen, and Weks ranked number one in the world, three hundred and two. That is astounding That year Forbes placed them at number two in the world's highest paid athletes earning over seventy million in a single year And that year, Roger shifted towards greater control over his commercial career. So he moved away from traditional agency representation with IMG. Instead, he co founded his own management company, Team eight with his longtime agent Tony Godsick And what this did is it effectively brought his own management in house. It allowed him to operate more like a business owner than a client of IMG. Yeah, so if you've got your own company, you're not paying the twenty percent or whatever it is to the agent and you've got more control over your own. life and through that new company teammates. he founded something called the Laver Cup which was an annual three day men's tennis tournament in which the top six players from Europe compete against the top six from the rest of the world, a format kind of inspired by Golf's Rider Cp. players are paid to participate, unlike normal ATPour events when you get paid from your winnings position as a tribute to Rod Labor, huge tennis star from the nineteen sixties. But the Labour Cup was a commercial venture. teammates were selling the tickets, the media rights, the sponsorships of this new competition first time Roger wasn't just playing the event, he kind of owned it. Yeah. And over the next five years, Roger continued to play at the top level of tennis And after a knee injury sent him down to seventeenth in the world ranking, he made an unbelievable comeback, winning multiple grand slams. People thought he couldn't do it. And in twenty eighteen at the age of thirty six, he became the oldest world number one in tennis history fourteen years after he first topped the rankings. Now the general trend for athletes has been longer and longer careers as sports science has got more advanced, there's better nutrition, there's better training. But at thirty six, he was years older than the average retirement age for a professional tennis player. If you look at the way they lunge' awful on the knees. Yeah knees But he was able to extend his career well beyond the norm because of his playing style because he was so moved so effortlessly it looked like. Unlike Nad doal, you could hear heavy timber crashing as he went from side to side. It was looked like he was just floating on air. And he also managed to schedule pretty carefully He played fewer tournaments, he prioritized recovery, eking out as much as he could of his career. And that meant he had about an extra decade on court compared to the average player And that meant he could earn more through appearance fees and exhibition games, which is another crucial revenue stream for tennis players. So tournament organizers pay players to show up and play in non ATP matches. The payments are separate from the prize money that're essentially paid for bringing in audiences, for ticket sellers, for broadcast attention. and obviously in these games, star power matters more than your actual ranking So by this point, Roger was earning between two to three million dollars per exhibition match or short event. Yeah. I remember when I worked in finance many, many years ago The The company I was working for sponsored one of these things and I got to have a go and played with Rod Laver and Jimmy Connors. And you do. Terrible. And you could tell they saying, whyy am I doing this? Why am I doing? The light slowly going out behind down? inside there're slowly dying, having to play with someone like me. But gosh, it was exciting. So the thing is is that companies pay big money for their executives all for their most favd clients to do stuff like this. it was a lot of fun. I'm sure Rod Lever reassured himself of the money he got at the end of the day. Apologies to both of them. Anyway. H long career also meant more sponsorship. In twenty eighteen, he signed a deal with Japanese clothing company Uniclo after ending his decades long partnership with Nike. The new UniclO contract was reportedly worth three hundred million dollars over time ten years. his onct earnings at the time around one hundred sixteen million dollars, making the deal more than double his tennis paycheck But Unico didn't make trainers that he could wear on court, so for a brief time he had to keep wearing his nine keys despite the fact he'd parted ways with the brand. But a year later, he partnered with a relatively neo athletic footwear brand called O founded in twenty ten Honest Swiss, so a perfect fit for Vederer. But as a relatively young brand, they were unlikely to be able to match the sort of money that more established brands like Nike or Unilo paid him for sponsorship. So Roger, his agent and his wife started discussing a very different type of deal And he This is interesting. He described negotiating as something also very new for me and all of a sudden you are a businessman and it just sounds so weird. Negotiations happen and it's kind of uncomfortable. You almost don't want them to exist ever. I mean, that's funny words coming from someone who's played some grueling tennis matches. Yeah. But they' in a way, they want the control of the business thing, but they don't want to actually have to sort of do their do the dirty work of actually you know the business negotiation. But he made that deal. He got a three percent stake in the brand And he worked with a brand to design the Roger line of tennis shoes for both on and off court. Then in twenty twenty one, the company went public, he sell shares to the public, and it was valued at over eleven billion dollars in their New York Stock Echange debut And that meant his stake was suddenly valued at around three hundred million dollars. Time and time again, we see owning the company and the IPO of the company, the selling the pubishes is where the really big money comes from. Well, it's funny because remember that film I talked about challenges. Well, the star of that Zendea is also one of the for on. Oh right. And I imagine that must have come about because of challenges. Maybe. There you go In twenty twenty two, age forty one, Roger played his final game professional tennis. And I think I saw this one as well. and actually Ra and Adal showed up and they held hands at the end and was he was in tears. We were all in tears. That's sweet. Well, it was time because his tennis career had been declining. He was battling a knee injury, which needed three operations out And his last game was at the Labver Cup in the O two Arena in London, therefore also bringing more attention to his own tournament, very clever And at the end of that match, he said, It's been the perfect journey. I do it all again. sweet.wet But he seems to be enjoying retirement. He says he doesn't miss tennis. He travels with his family, Tokyo, Thailand, South Africa He didn't go into hiding. He attended the Oscars. There was an Amazon Prime documentary about him. He appeared in GQ where he would wear his uniclo clothes, his on trainers. By twenty twenty five, his equity staken on was worth more than three hundred seventy five million dollars. And that year, age forty four Forbes declared Roger Federer a billionaire, worth one point one billion dollars toottinging it all up over the course of his career, he'd made one hundred thirty million dollars in prize money. This puts him behind his rivals Novak Djkovic, who has one hundred eighty nine million do and Rafael Nadao, who is one hundred thirty five. but off the court It's where he makes his real money. He rated more than double what Djkovic Oradao has. He's earned roughly one billion before taxes and agents fees from endorsements, appearances, and of course, other business endeavourors, which will probably continue to make him rich even as he retires. Well, that's for sure, because if you get off a plane in Switzerland at Geneva or Zurich, the first face you'll see almost is a smiling picture of Roger Federer tossing up a tennis ball while wearing a watch or promoting some financial services for which Switzerland is so well known So that's the end of the Roger Federer billionaire story to date Now it's time to score him on our billionaire categories. There's a bit of fun where we rate them between zero and ten on categories like wealth, controversy, power and legacy. So we'll start with wealth. one point one billion dollars. He's barely a qualifier. Well, very good. I mean, he's only the seventh athlete to join this club though. Yeah. He's one of a very small group of sports people who've managed to make that amount of money. Yeah. He was the world's highest paid tennis player for sixteen straight years What about how he spends it? We also have a look at that He's worn a rare Rolex. I do not know what this watch looks like, but I assume some listener as will is called the Sky dweller, veryy evocative. He wore that to play tennis. It's thought to be worth more than forty grand. I assume though that Rolex must have gifted that to him surely. I'm sure they did. He pays one thousand dollars per haircut to his barber What if it's the same bara who lopp off that ponytail, which proved to be so important. I hope that Bara got a raiseed because that ponytail was truly atrocious He's also an ambassador for Net jets, which is interesting. but that means he only owns a share of a private jet, not the whole plane. So he's got a little bit of his own PJ to fly around on. Yeah, it's an interesting company Net Jets A actually it's owned by one of our other billionaires, Warren Buffett And it's kind of like a timhare for planes. You sort of buy a quarter of a plane and that gives you X number of hours of flying time per year Just like if you buy a Tesare apartment You get X number of weeks living in it, but you don't fully own it. It's actually incredibly popular with it. It's about what did someone once say N jet is like having a bus pass private jets. Wow, A bus pass for billionaires doesn't get any better than that. Okay, so how would we rate It's going to have to be pretty low. I mean, he's not extravagant, he's not not bling enough to sort of get ratcheted up on that way. I would say I'm going to give him a two Oh. I would score him slightly higher, I think, because of the fact that he's one of a very small number of athletes who have made it to the Billionaires Club, but still three out of ten. Three for you, two for me Controversy, notot much, clean cuts, dependable once he got it over his tantrums pretty unflappable on court. given the amount of drama and controversy that has dogged other sports stars, not least people like Tiger Woods, I mean, this guy is squeaky clean. I think I might give him a zero. I mean there's nothing in it, is there? Can you find any squeak of controversy about this person. No, I mean, even the way he plays doesn't really invite kind of controversy, does he? Okay, sorry, Roger, zero from us or zero from me anyway, what about you Maybe I'll do one out of ten. Maybe something something dreadful might emerge. Somewhere out there, you know, he's been really rude to a physio. Okay. Give him one outend. Okay, fine. All right power and this is interesting. So we sometimes we look at this power within their sphere. and then power in the world generally. No doubt he was he's an absolute legend in the game. He actually got quite involved in the actual running of the sport. He was president of the ATP tour player Council for six years He also lobbied for extra prize money at the four Grand Slam events, a r you know rather self interested campaign, I think that might be. But actually, what's interesting is that much of that money went to early round losers which is quite well, I wouldn't say charitable, but it certainly acknowledges that if you go out early, you lose quite a bit of money. Yeah for those players on perhaps not at the top of the tree It's a recognition that actually once you've paid all the expenses it's actually hard to make a living. So power outside of it. I mean, he's one of the biggest sporting brands ever. He's right up there in terms of Power to sell stuff, clelearly the sponsors think that he's worth it. But politically, you know, he's very apolitical, you know and ye you can understand why if you're selling famously Swiss neutral. Exactly. Well if you're the face of shaving brands and Rolex, you probably don't want to get involved in world politics. No, Okaykay. so power, again, I'm gonna to score him low on this one I'm going to say three Yeah, I don' actually know within the sport, he's such a legend. I'm going to give him a fall. I think F is right. I mean, you know, he did coound a tournament. It's a big tournament the Labver Cup now. Yeah. Okay. what about legacy Now for a time, here was the undisputed goat greatest of all time at tennis But statistically, he got twenty grand slams. I think Novak Djokovich is up to twenty four. Yeah, But you know he still holds the most wimbled and men's singles tennis titles. So eight titles.. He hasn't been beaten on that yet. And one of the things that I think really rankles with Novak Djkovic is that he knows that despite the fact that he's got the most grand slam wins