In a sponsor category long dominated by two giants, the athleisure maker joins a wave of challengers tempting star players with opportunities for creative input—and lucrative financial terms.
Tennis fans were excited to see Jack Draper in action this week at the revamped U.S. Open mixed doubles tournament, but in his first competitive matches since he injured his arm at Wimbledon in July, something was a little different about England’s 23-year-old rising star. As Draper blasted lefty serves and forehands in a pair of victories Tuesday, he was sporting a completely new look—a sleeveless shirt and shorts from Vuori.
Earlier that day, Draper had announced he had signed with the Southern California-based athleisure brand to become the face of Vuori’s nascent tennis division, ditching the Nike apparel he had worn for his entire pro career. Terms of the contract were not announced, but it is believed to be among the most lucrative apparel deals in tennis, where the category can pay top players $10 million or more a year.
Draper, who fell short of Forbes’ 2025 list of the world’s highest-paid tennis players but could become a mainstay of the top 10 going forward, says the sponsor switch was a chance to take more control over the business side of his career.
“I’ve always been someone who’s been a bit different, and I wanted to go with a brand that’s a bit unique,” Draper tells Forbes. “Honestly, I hadn’t heard loads and loads about Vuori’s clothing before, but the material, as soon as I got it, I didn’t want to take it off.”
Illustration by Alice Lagarde for Forbes; Photos by Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images; Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images; Minas Panagiotakis/Stringer/Getty Images; Shi Tang/Getty Images; Dan Istitene/Getty Images
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With limited exceptions—Uniqlo signing Novak Djokovic and then Roger Federer, for instance, or Coco Gauff working with New Balance—apparel giants Nike and Adidas have had a chokehold on the sport’s top talent for decades, signing players in their teenage years and often maintaining relationships for their entire careers. Recently, however, upstart brands like On, Lululemon and Boss, as well as Vuori, have stormed into the space with big-name players like Iga Swiatek, Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz, respectively.
“I think tennis is obviously having a moment,” says Joe Kudla, Vuori’s founder and CEO. “We have patiently watched other big signings happen, but we believe in values alignment, and ultimately I think that paid off because we couldn’t be more thrilled about our partnership with Jack.”
Rather than being one in a long list of names on a big company’s roster, players see in the challenger brands an opportunity to be featured more prominently in marketing and storytelling materials, as well as the ability to meaningfully shape product development. After Ben Shelton, now the ATP Tour’s sixth-ranked player, signed with On in 2023, he told Forbes how the company’s CEOs met with him personally in the recruitment process and didn’t pressure him to wear the company’s clothes until they had developed items that fit his preferences.
The sport’s new entrants also have plenty to offer financially.
While the particulars of each tennis player’s contract vary, compensation for apparel deals is traditionally closely tied to on-court performance, with players earning bonuses for improving their ranking or winning Grand Slams—and facing reductions if their form falls off or they miss time with injuries.
Nike in particular is known for using a “grid” to determine pay—perhaps $10 million for a top veteran player who finishes the year at No. 1, but maybe only $750,000 if the same player on the same contract drops to No. 10. It’s a matter of exposure: Players who win consistently ensure that the brand’s logo appears prominently on television broadcasts, so sponsors are willing to pay for that privilege.
However, smaller brands seeking to lure top talent have in some cases been willing to offer deals that come with no reductions whatsoever, tennis insiders say. The tradeoff is that there may also be fewer bonuses available, but some players may value the higher guaranteed earnings—to carry them through a potential injury or dip in performance—more than they do the higher ceiling available when everything goes right. (The other approach clearly still offers some appeal, though: Nike counts Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka among its ambassadors.)
Having achieved a career-high ranking of No. 4 and turned in strong showings at recent Grand Slams, including a semifinal appearance at the 2024 U.S. Open, Draper hit the open market at exactly the right time. He quickly became this summer’s hottest apparel free agent, with brands drooling over his youth, his years of modeling experience (including a current partnership with fashion house Burberry) and his status as the highest-ranked player from tennis-mad England in over two decades. (Andy Murray, a U.K. legend who reached No. 1 in 2016, is from Scotland.)
Nearly a dozen suitors showed interest in signing Draper after Nike’s exclusive bargaining window expired just before Wimbledon. Top contenders including Nike and Lacoste all laid out their creative visions as negotiations intensified, and a few weeks later, Draper emerged with a contract from Vuori that Forbes estimates is comparable to the priciest Nike deals.
Pride of England: Draper, who played mixed doubles at the U.S. Open alongside Jessica Pegula, reached a career-high No. 4 in singles this year, becoming the highest-ranked Englishman in over two decades.
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It is not Vuori’s first foray into professional tennis, but it is by far its biggest. Since 2023, the brand has clothed ATP No. 55 Marcos Giron, but the apparel has thus far been so understated aesthetically—the company’s ethos in all of its products—that fans didn’t automatically associate it with high-level performance.
“That’s our opportunity, but the challenge in doing so is that sometimes people don’t take our technical credibility seriously,” says Kudla, the CEO. “Working with athletes like Jack, not only does [he] obviously help us build brand awareness, but [he] also lends us more technical credibility.”
Analysts estimate that sales at the privately held Vuori, which was founded in 2015, now exceed $1 billion per year, coming almost entirely from the U.S. as the company has only recently begun to open stores internationally. Rumors of a potential IPO circulated throughout 2024, but the company instead raised $825 million in November from growth investors General Atlantic and Strips at a $5.5 billion valuation.
Kudla says tennis is a growth area for the company, especially internationally—which analysts similarly believe was a key reason that Lululemon signed Tiafoe in January. Vuori is also interested in landing a high-profile female player at some point in the future, Kudla says.
Meanwhile, in New York, Draper has wasted little time jumping into appearances for his new sponsor. After a semifinal finish in the mixed doubles competition Wednesday, he spent a few minutes Thursday visiting Vuori’s store in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan, before the first round of the men’s singles draw begins Sunday.
“It was a bit crazy for me to see my picture in the shop window, and there was a lot of people who came out,” Draper says. “Sometimes in tennis you’re just thinking about your job the whole time, and what you’re doing, that you don’t appreciate the amount of support you can get from people as well. So that was really cool.”
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2025/08/21/jack-draper-tennis-vuori-sponsor/