Let's Be Honest: Martina Navratilova

Fiend at Court Unplugged

Martina Navratilova is the perfect case study of inequities in professional tennis endorsements. It is an undeniable fact that throughout here playing career she did not receive the same level of corporate sponsorship that the other players in her tier of performance were routinely awarded. We have previously touched on two contemporaries of Navratilova, Zina Garrison and Lori McNeil. Those players also did not receive many endorsement opportunities and that fact is attributed to the color of their skin. On the other hand, Navratilova’s issue is that she has always been always open about her sexuality. The tennis industry powers during her career simply did not believe that people would purchase products enforced by bisexual and homosexual athletes.

The fact the Navratilova had been roundly shunned by sponsors was well documented in “Ladies of the Court“ a book that presents a year-in-the-life account of the WTA tour in 1991. That happened to be the same year that NBA superstar Magic Johnson first revealed that he had AIDS. Magic was being portrayed in the media as a hero who would be a great ambassador for the disease. It was widely believed that he had contracted the disease through promiscuous heterosexual contact. His media coverage was almost completely positive because promiscuity in heterosexual male athletes wasn’t regarded as a negative.

During a post match press conference at the WTA Virginia Slims Championships, a reporter from the New York Post asked Navratilova what the reaction would be if she similarly announced that she had AIDS. Never the one to shy away from any controversial topic, she was extremely blunt in her remarks. Navratilova indicated that if she announced that she had AIDS that the media and the public would not be as kind. Specifically she believed that the media and public reaction would be that the “had it coming” because she is gay. She was the first person to express anything other than adulation for Magic Johnson. It created a media firestorm.

A Washington Post article written following the fallout from that comment provides a lot of details on Navratilova’s contractual situation at that time. For one thing, that article cited marketing surveys that consistently showed that tennis fans viewed Navratilova very favorably. In fact, she was liked better than any tennis other tennis player of that era with the sole exception of Chris Evert. However, she was unable to convert that popularity into economic opportunities. In 1991, Navratilova had four sponsors: Avia sports shoes, Yonex rackets, Thorlo athletic socks, and Denon sound systems.

Many of her contemporary players were receiving lucrative contracts for careers that barely scratched the surface of Navratilova’s career accomplishments. In 1991, Jennifer Capriati was 15 years old and had yet to win a major tennis tournament. She was paid over a million dollars annually to represent tennis clothing and equipment brands. In addition, she also had endorsement contracts with Oil of Olay and Texaco. In fact when teenage hormones sparked acne for Capriati, it was a minor crisis primarily due to the Oil of Olay deal. Another contemporary of Navratilova, 18 year old Monica Seles, was riding her number one world ranking to contracts totaling just over $5 million per year.

It is interesting to compare and contrast how the media handled the personal lives of Navratilova and Evert. Many parallels of failed relationships and personal indiscretions are apparent in their two lives. Throughout their careers, the accounts of Evert’s escapades were always presented consistently with her image as America’s sweetheart. The events in Navratilova’s life were not spun in the same way. There is not much difference in the history of their personal relationships other than sexual orientation. They both left a trail of messy and failed relationships in their wake.

The fact that Navratilova doesn’t shy away from controversial topics and speaks her mind has been consistent throughout her life. Arguably she would have experienced better economic opportunities if she had a PR person in her camp managing her image. It is likely that she would have been advised to not speak out on controversial topics and to be more guarded when questioned about them by the media. However, it is doubtful that Navratilova would have ever been anything other than authentic. It is just who she is.

More recently, marketing in the tennis industry has transformed to reflect more diversity and compensates the stars of the game more equitably. In my darker moments, I wonder if the more inclusive environment for tennis sponsorship isn’t rooted in the sudden discovery that gay and minority people happen to have discretionary income to spend. Additionally, the majority of the consumer public places a premium on competitive performance. The color of a player’s skin and sexual orientation isn’t the insurmountable barrier to participation that it used to be.

As an epilogue to this story, In 1991, Venus Williams was eleven years old. The story of pending potential endorsement contracts for Venus is discussed across seven pages in Ladies of the Court. That is a little more than a passing reference or mention. This was at the same time that black players Zina Garrison and Lori McNeil were in the early stages of their careers and struggling to obtain contractual endorsements that largely never came. Similarly, Navratilova was in the waning stages of her iconic Hall of Fame career, and was still struggling to win corporate endorsements.

The winds of change were blowing, but that wind was best characterized as a gust that was highly localized to the Williams sisters. As we all know, they eventually blew the roof off corporate sponsorships for female black players in tennis. To say that they kicked open the doors is a profound understatement.