As Japan’s top-ranked player, Osaka has the full attention of the country’s top brandsGETTY IMAGES
Tennis player Naomi Osaka has signed a multiyear deal with Citizen in which she will become a global ambassador for the watch brand. The Japanese-Haitian Osaka, who is repped by IMG, has deals with Adidas, Yonex, Japanese food company Nissin and Japanese TV outlet Wowow. Osaka enters this week's U.S. Open ranked No. 19 in the world (IMG). Osaka is the focus of a deep profile in this week's N.Y. TIMES MAGAZINE, with Brook Larmer noting Osaka's decision to play professionally under the Japanese flag has had "major repercussions" in her life. That includes the "way she is perceived" in Japan and the U.S. to the "size of the endorsement contracts she can now command as a top Japanese athlete ahead" of the '20 Tokyo Games. Osaka has been "embraced by Japanese media, companies and fans hungering for a female tennis star." In addition to deals with Nissin and Wowow, other Japanese multinationals "are circling." Her "biggest payday may come at the end of the year, when her Adidas shoe-and-apparel contract expires -- just in time for the prelude" to the Tokyo Games. If Osaka, who was raised in the U.S. since she was 3, played under the American flag, it is "very unlikely that these opportunities would exist." Japanese companies would have "no reason to court her and U.S. brands would have other higher-ranked young guns to consider." However, as Japan’s top-ranked player, Osaka has the "full attention of the country’s top brands, whose sponsorship fees can run far higher than those of their Western counterparts" (N.Y. TIMES MAGAZINE, 8/26 issue).
