Lindsey Vonn has turned into the Maria Sharapova of alpine skiing without matching the earning power of the world’s highest-paid female athlete.
Almost a year after winning the Olympic downhill at the Vancouver Winter Games, Vonn has become a household name in the U.S. She played a small role on NBC’s “Law & Order” television show, went to the White House correspondents’ dinner and played a Sharon Stone look-alike.
Her annual endorsement income with companies such as Red Bull, Rolex, Procter & Gamble and Under Armour doubled to about $6 million, according to analysts at Baker Street Advertising in San Francisco.
That’s a bunny hill compared with the $24.5 million that Sharapova takes home each year in prize money and deals with Nike, Tiffany and Evian water. Vonn and Sharapova, a three-time major tennis champion from Russia, are represented by IMG.
It’s “highly unlikely that Vonn will ever match Sharapova’s earning power,” Bob Dorfman, creative director of Baker Street Advertising, said in an interview. “It’s not a personality issue; it’s a matter of their particular sport.
“Tennis pros are more visible, more accessible and more fashionable, and their equipment — from shoes to clothes to accessories — lends itself to more endorsement opportunities.”
Vonn, who recently won her first event of the season in the super-giant slalom in Lake Louise in Canada, also suffers from the low visibility of her sport during non-Olympic years.
During an interview at the start of the season in Soelden, Austria, the 26-year-old expressed frustration at the marketing of skiing, saying it doesn’t have enough events in North America and doesn’t promote its athletes as well as tennis.
Vonn married former American ski racer Thomas Vonn in 2007 and lives in Vail and Austria. Her family relocated to Vail from Minnesota when she was a teenager so she would have access to better training facilities.
Led by Sharapova, tennis players including sisters Serena ($20.2 million in annual earnings) and Venus Williams ($15.4 million) made up half the top 10 list of the world’s highest-earning female athletes, published by Forbes in August. Three golfers, including the retired Annika Sorenstam ($8 million), were also included.
“While the Olympic platform is massive, being out of the spotlight puts Olympians at a disadvantage,” said Matt Delzell, a senior director at the Marketing Arm. “In the U.S., athletes in mainstream sports like golf, baseball, basketball and football are visible for much of the year. That’s not the case with Olympians.”
