To celebrities who endorse products, a $1 billion talent fee is considered megabucks like they have won the lottery. However, in the case of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, it seems it was Nike, the sports brand that signed him in November to a lifetime deal worth $1 billion, which apparently benefitted more financially.
The Real Madrid player is the third athlete given a lifetime deal by the iconic sports brand. His fee appears to be the highest, although official amounts have not been disclosed by Nike. Basketball player LeBron James reportedly got a higher fee than the estimated $300-million 10-year agreement of Nike with Oklahoma City Thunder player Kevin Durant in summer.
There is no estimate of Michael Jordan’s quasi-lifetime deal for his Nike-owned Jordan brand of basketball shoes, but Forbes estimate his wealth at $1.24 billion.
In a new report by Hookit, which tracks, measures and values sports sponsorship, it estimated the value of Cristiano Ronaldo’s social media presence in 2016 through 329 posts he made on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook was $474 million. Scott Tilton, co-founder of Hookit, pointed out that the soccer great is incredibly effective in integrating his sponsors into the content he shares to his 240 million followers across the three social media sites.
From January through November, Cristiano Ronaldo posted 1,515 times on social media sites. He promoted Nike in 21.7 percent of the posts when he used a hashtag, mentioned the brand or its logo which generated 443.5 million total interactions such as likes, comments, shares, retweets and video views, Forbes reported.
Tilton explained that the average number of impressions for every interaction of the athlete’s post ranged from 15 to 65. Based on his 1,515 posts in the first 11 months of 2016 when he mentioned Nike or he used the brand’s Swoosh logo, it generated over 25 billion impressions.
Hookit said the value of Cristiano Ronaldo’s social media feed for Nike is “above and beyond the value” he generates for the sports brand from his appearance and in commercials and even apparel and footwear he help sell for Nike.