Naomi Osaka’s Net Results

In January, Naomi Osaka announced to the world that she’d be stepping away from tennis in 2023 as she prepared to give birth. Her daughter, Shai, arrived in July, and—a little more than two weeks later—Osaka returned to her tennis training to begin fulfilling a dream: “for my kid to watch one of my matches and tell someone, ‘That's my mom.’” To the casual sports fan and Osaka’s career statistics page, that’s her year in summary. To the multiple people and enterprises that comprise Osaka’s business universe, it’s a segment of a larger story. At the gated home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., where Osaka has been training, she brought together representatives from each of her businesses to recap their achievements in 2023 and hash out plans for 2024. Her Evolve talent agency addressed future opportunities for its charismatic Australian men’s tennis client Nick Kyrgios. The team from her media company, Hana Kuma—launched with Stuart Duguid with backing from LeBron James and Maverick Carter—reflected on the success of its documentaries. And the team behind Osaka’s Kinlò line of sun-protection products for melanated skin focused on rebranding the line and adjusting its retail positioning. “[With] each undertaking, I’ve learned a lot from it, and I've been able to meet so many incredible people that are experts in their field,” Osaka said. “I think the most exciting thing is being passionate about all of the businesses, wanting to learn and wanting to see where it takes us.” Osaka’s Kinlò line of sun-protection products is getting a rebrand. Tennis generally isn’t considered a team sport, but there are a host of trainers, coaches, agents and others supporting an athlete’s achievements. The 2024 Australian Open is Osaka’s tennis comeback, but it’s going to launch the partners and businesses that have supported Osaka onto a center court all their own. “I want them all to feel like an extension of me, but not like I have to always be there,” Osaka said. “It's great that every brand develops their own identity, and that was the goal that we were reaching for.” Evolving equity At the end of 2021, Forbes ranked Osaka the highest-earning female athlete in the world at $57.3 million—with just $2.3 million of that coming from on-court winnings. With her deal with IMG about to end and her peers in men’s sports coming away from their endorsement deals with stakes in companies, Osaka founded Evolve with Duguid, his wife, Carly in May 2022. By the end of 2022, Osaka pocketed another $51.1 million, and Evolve had signed Kyrgios as its first athlete. Once signed, Evolve wants to ensure that its athletes aren’t just billboards for the brands they endorse. As Osaka learned while building Evolve with Duguid, trust can be an invaluable tool in forging brand-athlete relationships. “Growing up in the sports industry, I've had some bad deals, and I've had some deals that I'm not too happy with,” Osaka said. “Equity is really important, and believing in the brands and the partners that you're with pays off really well.” ‘I want them all to feel like an extension of me, but not like I have to always be there,’ Osaka said of her business ventures. A story of opportunity Osaka’s media company, Hana Kuma, aims to deliver undertold stories with the greatest impact possible. That means being open to scripted stories, documentaries, children’s books, podcasts, anime, manga, interviews and other avenues. It also requires impeccable timing. To tell the story of Patsy Mink, the Japanese American congresswoman who authored Title IX legislation in 1972 that paved the way for gender equity initiatives in schools and sports, Hana Kuma partnered with The New York Times and Breakwater Studios. The documentary, Mink!, was released last year for the 50th anniversary of Title IX and was nominated for an Emmy. “I'm learning that timing is really important,” Osaka said. “It's one of these things that I have to trust—and I trust everyone in the Hana Kuma team.” This year, Hana Kuma followed a young soccer player through a Haitian youth soccer program as the Haitian women’s team competed in its first Women’s World Cup. The result is the documentary Footsteps, which was produced by Haitian American director Rachelle Salnave and a Haitian crew when Hana Kuma couldn’t get into Haiti. “A lot of these things are somewhat opportunistic,” Duguid said. Osaka wants to tell more stories tied to her Japanese and Haitian American heritage. She's also exploring mental health in her podcast video series Can’t Wait to Hear From You—in partnership with Modern Health, with guest hosts including Luvvie Ajayi and Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, surgeon general. Osaka sees even more potential in yet unexplored areas like anime. “Growing up and watching a cartoon character say, ‘You can do it,’ and, ‘Believe it,’ and things like that, you just start to feel a positive energy around that,” Osaka said. Naomi Osaka by the numbers 4 Grand Slam titles (2018 and 2020 U.S. Open, 2019 and 2021 Australian Open) 265-148 career record 7-4 in career finals $21.18 million in on-court earnings 11+ brand sponsors including Nike, Mastercard, Yonex, Louis Vuitton, Levi's, Modern Health, TAG Heuer, Beats by Dre, GoDaddy, Morinaga and Panasonic 5+ brand investments including BodyArmor, Hyperice, the North Carolina Courage, Miami Pickleball Club and Poppi $450 million in total career earnings by the end of 2022 481 days between her last match at the 2022 Toray Pan Pacific Open and her comeback at the 2024 Australian Open Under the skin What if you tell a story and listeners don’t quite understand it? The CDC found that Black people die of skin cancer at a higher rate (33%) than their white counterparts. After hearing that message, Osaka and her team created Kinlò sun-protection products in 2021 for people with melanated skin. “When I first got the samples of Kinlò, I was so excited and so happy, and I felt like there are so many people like me that would feel the same feeling,” she said. Initially, that was true. Kinlò launched a campaign featuring college athletes using its products in the field. It hit shelves in 1,500 Walmart locations across the U.S. within its first six months. Unfortunately, some consumers thought it was a cosmetic product and ignored it. At some stores, it was lumped in with hair care products. Kinlò is getting a rebrand in 2024 to look somewhat less cosmetic. It’s also going to take lessons from its early retail experience. “We should have built our brand over two or three years, understood who our consumer was, understood where they shop, understood what they need, and then we should buy into wherever they are and meet them there,” Duguid said. Picking pickleball- Already part of the ownership group of the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage, Osaka recently took a stake in Miami Pickleball Club along with Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes, DJ and music producer Kygo, and others. The team is drawing smaller sponsors like beverage brand Poppi—which Osaka invests in—celebrity video greeting platform Cameo and apparel brand Original Penguin. Pickleball is offering brands lower-cost access to top-tier sports talent, but its biggest draw is far more speculative. “At some point, and we're getting close, there's gonna be a really, really cool pickleball player, someone who's very edgy, who has a big social media following,” said Duguid. “When that person comes along, we would like to help them on that journey.” By design Since childhood, Osaka and her sister Mari have sketched together. Osaka has since presented sketches and designs to brands, turning them into collections for Levi’s, Victoria’s Secret, Meta and TAG Heuer. Her latest collection is for Nike; she's designed for the sportswear giant since 2020. “I think it's really cool and a huge step forward from the very first collection, which was kind of more geared towards tenniswear,” Osaka said. Osaka’s design work has created room for yet another brand within her ecosystem. Much as her parents' backgrounds and experiences informed Hana Kuma's mission, and her daughter's presence fueled both her return to tennis and the expansion of her business legacy, her design achievements are inextricably bound to those early sketches with her sister. Osaka's professional life is a family affair, and her chosen family of business partners intends for it to extend beyond her tennis career’s inevitable conclusion. “The reason we did all this with, in my opinion, the best of the best in each case was for Naomi, myself and for Carly to learn from the best,” Duguid said. “So that when—and perhaps the time is when Naomi’s not playing tennis—she wants to do her own brand, no one will have been through a better university of design than Naomi.” This story is part of the Connections and Collaboration special feature.

Sports Marketing News

Naomi Osaka Built a Business Empire, and a Family, in Time Off From Tennis

With a 2024 tour return, the phenom builds brands with a winning team

Jason Notte

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