 |
The personable Wozniacki, interacting with fans at a tournament earlier this month, has a charm and accessibility that’s rare for most elite players.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
|
Last Monday, just days before the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, Caroline Wozniacki, one of last year’s finalists, practiced on a public court snug between Manhattan’s bustling West Side Highway and the Hudson River. Cars roared past just a few yards away.
She arrived early in the morning to find one of a trio of courts empty, but she would have waited otherwise, the Dane said. Her Lagardère agent had reserved a high-priced court in midtown. Instead, the former world No. 1 prepared for the Open by walking on to a public court she had found during a run.
It’s just a glimpse into how Wozniacki operates and what makes her so valuable to the companies that back her: She’s a star, but also the always smiling everywoman. So much so that without a major title, she trails only Serena Williams, a winner of 21 Grand Slam tournaments, and five-time Slam winner Maria Sharapova in annual endorsement earnings among female athletes.
“She is dynamic and people really love and respect her,” said Jaymee Messler, president of The Players’ Tribune, the athlete website launched by Derek Jeter and that signed Wozniacki last week (she may write her first column during the Open).
 |
Wozniacki poses with Derek Jeter and Jaymee Messler of The Players’ Tribune during an event last week in New York City.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
|
Wozniacki, 25, connects to fans in part through charm and accessibility foreign to most elite players — she is ranked fourth in the world but held the WTA’s No. 1 ranking at the end of both 2010 and 2011. Take last week’s practice, about a half-mile from her Manhattan apartment, which she bought for $5.5 million four years ago. Few players would shun privacy in favor of swinging unscripted on a public court.
“I just like to have a life,” she said during an interview last week in her Union Square two-bedroom, a makeup artist prepping her face and hair for a sponsor appearance at a Godiva store later that day. “I went to Hudson [Street] and the West Side Highway and played tennis there today. They have newly resurfaced courts there.
“Yesterday I ran past as well, and I was like, you know, I am just going to go here and practice … so I will just stay here. It’s fun. You get to meet people as well. There are so many people who come out. They are like, ‘It’s great to see you here, it’s amazing you don’t feel like you are too good for these courts,’” she said, placing a long Danish accent on the word “too.”
Wozniacki endorsements
■ Adidas
■ Babolat
■ USANA
■ Wheels Up
■ Godiva
■ Lavazza
■ Head Trainer
■ Betadine*
■ Rolex
■ JBS**
* Asia only
** Close to renewal
Obviously, brands are buying more than just a nice person (her nickname on tour is Sunshine). Wozniacki is glamorous, a top player in the leading sport for women and often in the celebrity pages, especially since her abrupt breakup last year with golfer Rory McIlroy. (The latest reports attach her to NFL star J.J. Watt.)
Whomever she dates, deals are piling up. In the last year, she added Godiva, Lavazza and Wheels Up and is renewing a major deal with Danish undergarment maker JBS. In fact, Wozniacki is a bigger corporate draw than when she topped the WTA, pulling in between $12 million and $14 million annually in endorsements and prize money (the endorsement money fluctuates based on performance bonuses). That is the neighborhood of what Williams earns, and about half of Sharapova.
“I don’t look at Grand Slams,” said Kenny Dichter, co-founder of charter airline brand Wheels Up, which signed Wozniacki as an ambassador. “She is operating at the top of her game, top level. You don’t have to win every time. The way she handles herself, the way she carries herself.”
According to Repucom’s DBI celebrity index, her ranking in the U.S. is higher today than in 2011 when she last ended a season No. 1. Among female athletes, she ranks behind only Williams, her sister Venus and Sharapova, and ahead of Lindsey Vonn and Danica Patrick. Overseas her ranking is higher.
When Wozniacki ran the 2014 TCS New York City Marathon, 25,000 people tracked her progress on the race’s mobile application and through its website, five times more than the next runner, road racing star Meb Keflezighi.
“She was among the top celebrity runners we have had,” said Michael Capiraso, president and CEO of New York Road Runners, which owns and stages the annual 26.2-mile endurance contest.
He credits Wozniacki with driving up interest by engaging regularly before the race with NYRR and raising $87,000 for a youth fitness cause. Media coverage of the 2014 race rose 50 percent from 2013, according to NYRR. And that race followed the Boston Marathon bombing.
“From the minute she signed on, she promoted,” Capiraso said.
 |
Wozniacki has been a marketer’s dream, signing with USANA in March (above) and serving Lavazza coffee at Wimbledon (below).
Photo by: USANA HEALTH SCIENCES
|
Wozniacki also gets the paparazzi cameras clicking. On and off court, she is serious about how she looks.
“As a woman you want to look good on the court, special and unique,” said Wozniacki, who works with sponsor Adidas to design the dresses she wears in competition. “One hundred percent, I want to be the best. At the same time, there is nothing that prevents you from looking good on court. If you ask any woman on the street, you ask them do you feel pretty, do you want to
 |
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
|
dress up, 99 percent would say, ‘Yeah, I want to dress nice. I want to wear heels.’”
Like many athletes, Wozniacki is active on social media and uses it to engage with fans. As of last week, she had 923,000 Twitter followers, 1.45 million Facebook likes and 454,000 Instagram followers. She often exchanges pleasantries over social media with Serena Williams, drawing people into their apparently BFF relationship.
From the outside, the friendship with Williams may appear incongruous given the American’s steely and sometimes combative demeanor contrasted with Wozniacki’s continual smiles. The Dane, though, said there is more than meets the eye.
The press has burned Williams, Wozniacki said, and she is not as willing to open up publicly. Behind the scenes, the world No. 1 is different and supportive, Wozniacki explained, citing the comfort Williams provided during the McIlroy breakup. If she can’t win the Open, Wozniacki wants Williams to win it, which would give her an in-season Grand Slam for the first time in the sport since 1988.
Wozniacki unplugged
■
Deal she would most like to sign: Car.
“I love my Range Rovers, but I am not going to be that picky (laughs). There are so many great cars out there, BMW, Audi, Mercedes.”
■ Why her dog is named Bruno: “I love Bruno Mars. He is a small dog and Bruno sounds [like] someone buff, and I think that is funny.”
■ How much time she spends at her New York apartment: Just a few weeks a year.
■ Why she bought it: It was on her bucket list, like running the New York City Marathon.
■ Funniest thing she has seen out her apartment window overlooking Manhattan’s Union Square: A dog walker with five dogs on leashes in each hand, so 10 dogs total.
■ What else is on her bucket list: Going to Alaska and Queenstown, New Zealand.
■ First thing she will do when she retires: Go skiing. “I have been unable to do it, allowed to do it for 15 years. It is in the contracts. I know that it is dangerous for my tennis.” (Endorsement contracts often ban risky activities.)
■ How her dad, and still coach, gave her an incentive to train when she was young: If she hit targets 10 times she got an ice cream. “I would really win 10 ice creams, but I would only get one. I would still be happy.”
■ How much she runs weekly: Four times a week she runs four miles, and twice a week she runs 10 miles, so 36 miles total. (She ran about 50 miles a week during marathon training.)
■ Where she will be in 15 years: “I hope that I will have a family by that time and a few kids, and living more of a life away from the spotlight. But at the same time, I love tennis. I think I will always be part of it.”
— Compiled by Daniel Kaplan
“It would be great for women’s tennis,” Wozniacki said.
Seated in the back of a black SUV toiling through Manhattan streets toward her Godiva appearance, her agent Drew LeMesurier beside her, Wozniacki leans forward to make eye contact and emphasizes that if reporters don’t write fair stories, access is shut down. It’s not so much a threat — and few could say it as charmingly and seemingly innocently as Wozniacki — but it is a reality in a sport where there are few rules about media access other then anodyne appearances at tournaments.
In any event, with Wozniacki there is not much negative, though as she discovered, the New York tabloids will find it. The New York Post’s Page 6 bashed her for practicing too long on the public court, the headline reading she “hogs public NYC tennis court.” Welcome to New York, where residents curse when movies are shot on their street.
James McCoy, director of strategic development and client services at Signature Sports, cited her social media followers overseas as a big factor in his client, Head Trainer, signing her. The brain game app for athletes launched in June and endorsers include Richard Sherman, Jose Bautista and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Wozniacki, who speaks six languages — Danish, Polish, English, Russian, French and Swedish — offered a platform no American athlete could, McCoy explained.
“We have users in over 70 countries, so to have somebody with that kind of appeal, a top-ranked player, was huge,” he said.
To Wozniacki, her appeal is not necessarily her international reach but what she calls her “laid-back” personality.
Sitting in her apartment, with its roughly 25-foot ceilings, black-and-white photos of New York landmarks, pet bowls on the floor for her dog Bruno and views of Union Square perfect for people watching, she struggles a bit when first asked to describe her marketing appeal, coming up with “hard worker” and “funny.” She turns to LeMesurier and asks him. He quickly offers “relatable,” which pleases her.
“I have been No. 1 and want to get back there, but at the same time I am a regular girl who loves to do regular stuff,” Wozniacki said. “I think I am so relatable to people, that’s one of my biggest things. People can see themselves in me.”
