Strawberries and cream. Players in white. Well-dressed fans in linen and panama hats. It looks effortless, but Wimbledon’s elegance is the product of ruthlessly deliberate commercial engineering.
Over at the World Cup, the naked commercialism of FIFA is more blatant: the new hydration breaks are booed and the stadium condiment crackdown is ridiculed. Wimbledon’s sponsorship dollars, however, are just as fiercely protected – it’s just that restraint is very much part of the brand’s value.
For the sponsors, a lot of the value lies in the of the clutter-free courts, where the surroundings are a clean green and the players are dressed in white. The insistence on the dress code led men’s number one Yannik Sinner to joke that he was worried about falling foul of the rules when red blood from a burst blister leaked across his shoes on the opening day. (Nike, of course, was very happy to see close-ups of his shoe all over the news.)
Wimbledon is home to the longest-running sports partnership in history, thanks to Slazenger maintaining its status as official ball supplier since 1902. Rolex has been official time keeper since 1978, and IBM joined as tech partner in 1990.
New “official partner” categories have been added at intervals: Lavazza took on coffee in 2011, Stella Artois became the beer in 2014, and Vodafone the connectivity partner in 2022. All remain committed to the tournament.
VCCP’s new global brand platform, “There’s only one Wimbledon”, is about as understated as a sports campaign can afford to be, leaning into the flora and fauna element of the only Grand Slam played on grass. CMO Usama Al-Qassab has a background at equally tightly-controlled brands including Disney, PlayStation, M&S and P&G.
Any activations around the tournament happen over a mile away from the All England Lawn Tennis Club itself, centring around the Wimbledon station area. Very much in the tournament traditions, this year Tesco has set up a strawberries and cream truck in the area, and Caffe Nero has turned into a “game, set and matcha” shop
Around 20% of Wimbledon’s revenue comes from sponsorship, according to the BBC. That revenue totalled around $539m in 2024, ahead of the French Open ($393m) and Australian Open ($282m), and just behind the US Open’s $560m
