Imagine buying a five-hour Nike commercial on July 4th weekend. It would cost a lot of money. Well, that’s essentially what the sports shoe and apparel giant was able to do by having the fortune of their two top men’s tennis players play each other in an epic battle in Sunday’s Wimbledon Final.
During the longest final in Wimbledon history, Roger Federer wore seven gold swooshes (one on his shirt, one on his bandana, one on his wristband, one on each of his socks and each of his shoes). And the victorious Rafael Nadal wore eleven black swooshes (one on his shirt, one on his bandana, one on each of his wristbands, one on his shorts, one on each of his socks and two swooshes each of his shoes).
Between the two players, Nike’s familiar logo was featured for 35 minutes and 23 seconds, equaling $10,615,000 worth of equivalent advertising time, according to Eric Wright of sponsorship evaluation firm Joyce Julius & Associates.
Federer’s swooshes accounted for 13 minutes and 3 seconds worth of time and Nadal’s swooshes were seen for 22 minutes and 20 seconds, Wright said. That’s not to mention the ridiculous exposure that Nike got on the cover of all the major papers and on broadcasts other than the NBC broadcast of the match.
While the match drew a 4.6 rating, the best rating of a Wimbledon final since 2000, it wasn’t the greatest day ever for Nike swooshes. Wright said that Trevor Immelman alone was worth $14.7 million to Nike during the final round of the Masters this year and that, because of higher ratings, the 28 minutes the Nike swoosh received ruing the BCS National Championship game was worth $53 million, Wright said.
