The world no.1 became too strong for the Italian brand to split and go for a more solid one.
What happened? Well apparently Sergio Tacchini hit a jackpot by signing the Serb and securing a 10 years deal with Nole back in 2009. Then the Djoker rised to the very limelight of the tennis gotha and as expected the demand for Tacchini products raised accordingly especially in the US.
Unfortunately, the Italian brand couldn’t cope with the logistics and inventory so as to do not take advantage of the surging demand in North America delivering late and sometimes wrong sizes. Distributors were basically losing lots of business.
Apparently, there were also many fights and misunderstandings between Tacchini salesmen in Italy and the local distributors in US.
In addition, according to CNBC “Tacchini was able to sign Djokovic by offering him a smaller guarantee than the larger companies would pay, but promised bigger should he do well,” CNBC reported. “When Djokovic kept winning, the company fell behind on payments to the tennis star.”
So, quite surprisingly a spokeman of Tacchini announced that they will not sponsor Djokovic anymore since the no.1 player did outgrow the brand.
“It has been mutually and amicably decided that, as of the 2012 Roland Garros Grand Slam, Novak Djokovic will no longer be the brand ambassador,”
“has grown professionally, climbing from third to first place in the world ATP ranking,” Sergio Tacchini International said.
Nole signed a 5 years deal with Uniqlo to be their brand Ambassador.
Uniqlo is an Asian top apparel retailer that is aiming at expand its operations in the States and Europe planning to open between 200 and 300 new stores a year.
Novak will definately help!
Photo Credit to Beth Wilson
