GOLDEN GIRLS OLYMPIC SPONSORSHIP WINNERS CASH IN
THIS summer they will be focused on the ultimate prize – gold at the London 2012 Olympics.
But for some of Britain’s top athletes the race for lucrative sponsorship deals is already reaching its climax.
Away from the pool, track and gym, deals have been signed with some of Britain’s biggest brands, which will pay athletes such as Victoria Pendleton, and Jessica Ennis amounts beyond the wildest dreams of their predecessors.
Even relatively unknown Jenna Randall, a synchronised swimmer, has been successful in accruing endorsements from Braun Female and Kellogg’s, as well as a charity calendar shoot for Nichole de Carle London, the luxury lingerie brand, all on the strength of her potential this year.
Ennis’s deal with adidas alone is estimated to be worth up to £320,000 a year, including performance bonuses.
Pendleton is paid £150,000 a year to be the face of Hovis bread, while swimmer Keri-anne Payne’s deal with Max Factor is understood to be worth around £70,000 a year.
And if they go on to win medals at the London games the earnings from sponsorship and commercial fees of the trio, the female athletes most in demand, could rise to between £500,000 and £1million a year.
Randall, 23, typifies the transformation the Olympics has brought in athletes’ fortunes. Before signing her sponsorship deals she had to raise money by performing with the synchronised swimming group Aquabatix, and in a video played during singer Kylie Minogue’s Aphrodite tour.
Now she is one of 11 members of Team GB that one company has signed to act as its brand ambassadors.
Procter & Gamble, the consumer products company, is paying between £25,000 and £150,000 a year to each of the Olympians it endorses, depending on their level of achievement, profile and sporting potential.
They include Payne, Pendleton, Paula Radcliffe and Ennis, as well as Sir Chris Hoy, the cyclist, and Jeanette Kwakye, a sprinter. The sums dwarf deals won by British medallists in previous Games, even at the height of their fame.
Sally Gunnell, who won gold in the 400m hurdles at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, said: “Athletes today, even ones who have not won medals yet, can command much bigger amounts than I could.
“A lot of them have become household names before they’ve really achieved anything on a world scale.
‘‘People like Linford Christie and myself had to win gold before anyone wanted to use us in an endorsement.”
Much of the increase in earning power is the result of this year’s Games being held in Britain, with both sponsors and the public hungry for home-grown heroes.
Margena Bogdanowicz, the British Olympics Association’s former director of marketing, who now runs her own marketing consultancy, said athletes were more appealing to many advertisers than highly-paid football stars as they provided a positive role model for children.
‘‘Normal people can relate to them more easily,” she said.
The ability of British athletes to attract sponsorship was boosted by the ‘‘Beijing bounce’’, which followed Team GB’S strong showing in the 2008 medals table.