Wimbledon sells what it hides
The luxury playbook applied to a tennis tournament (and to your business)
Now that Wimbledon is over, have you noticed there are no ads courtside like in every other tournament? That no court is named after a tennis player or celebrity? Or that it's broadcast on the BBC for free despite huge offers for the TV rights? And yet, you probably know Wimbledon is the second Grand Slam by revenue, right behind the US Open, and it pulls that off with just 17 sponsors, versus more than 25 at the others. Or that it makes close to 40 million euros in profit, all of which goes back to the British tennis federation.
Wimbledon follows the luxury industry playbook, applying principles like:
- Deliberate distance, the strategy a company uses to set itself apart from the competition;
- Managed scarcity, by capping ticket sales and sponsorships; and
- Openness to the community, opening the tournament to every Briton through television.
Tickets are sold through the famous Queue, which prevents resale, and the 17 sponsors pay an average of seven million euros to appear only small and in symbolic places (IBM on the scoreboard, Rolex on the serve speedometer, for example). Wimbledon uses the tools of luxury brands, where empty space and silence signal status, above the noise of other tournaments where advertising is sold by the centimetre.
With this strategy, Wimbledon has grown year after year, generating business and funding while preserving the exclusivity and timelessness of the tournament: Wimbledon is, and will remain, itself. And that is exactly what generates money and interest.
I find it fascinating, for example, how it finances investments in its facilities (like the retractable roofs on Centre Court and Court 1) without turning to private equity or commercial bank debt, but through the debentures it issues every five years. These are offered to investors who pay a huge premium upfront in exchange for a reserved seat every day of the tournament for 5 years (and the legal right to resell that ticket). This has allowed Wimbledon to raise more than 500 million euros net for renovations, at zero cost. A textbook lesson in how to finance fixed assets by monetising the waiting list and social status.
And that is Wimbledon's secret: they know exactly what they want to achieve and how they want to achieve it. And they spend their time making it happen imaginatively and, above all, coherently.
That is why, when we work on the growth strategy of our own company, we need to think carefully about what we are willing not to do. Because what we decide not to do is often worth more than what we do. Wimbledon has this crystal clear. Do we?
© Oriol López Villena 2026