Few events in sport are as defined by their traditions at the Championships at Wimbledon.
Between the all-white dress code for players, the green and purple colour scheme, the meticulously kept grounds, Pimms, strawberries and cream as well as the layers of protocol for participants and spectators, these conventions are a core part of its identity.
Yet as much as its organisers have leaned into those aspects in recent years, they have also embraced innovation, updating the experience in south-west London and expanding digital output immensely.
Now the grass court Grand Slam has its first Asian sponsor, and its first official smartphone partner. Chinese brand Oppo has signed a five-year deal with the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) which also marks the company’s first partnership in the UK, following earlier deals with Spanish soccer champions FC Barcelona, cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) and the International Cricket Council (ICC).
The announcement was made in late April in a room looking out across from the expanding No1 Court, which has been furnished with a new roof and hospitality suites as part of a long-rolling package of upgrades around SW19.
Few global sporting events have as many layers of tradition as the the Championships at Wimbledon
Former British number one Tim Henman, a four-time Wimbledon semi-finalist, was in attendance, along with AELTC chairman Philip Brook, in the rare company of both the men’s and women’s singles trophies. On hand to share some of the details of the new agreement were AELTC commercial and media director Mick Desmond and Oppo vice president Brian Shen.
Oppo will be building its promotional activities around Wimbledon on the photographic capabilities of its new smartphones, making the most of the signature imagery the event provides. The partnership’s benefits go far deeper than that, however, to support the ambitions of each party in opposite corners of the world.
“It’s a very young brand,” says Desmond. “It’s 11 years old. I think the smartphone versus a more traditional category of brand is a much better fit for us because, really, we’re really trying to capture the current young generation of China and the next generation of China as well as an older generation of China. You’re seeing far more participation in sport in China taking place; if over the next five, ten, 15, 20 years, we can catch that curve with people like Oppo, that would be fantastic.”
You’re seeing far more participation in sport in China taking place; if over the next five, ten, 15, 20 years, we can catch that curve with people like Oppo, that would be fantastic
Mick Desmond, AELTC commercial and media director
A commercial exchange and a love affair
The AELTC, Desmond says, had been on the lookout for a partner in Asia for some time but it was Oppo that made the initial approach. “We knew that they’d had a relationship with Barcelona for a number of years, and also the IPL,” he says. “So we were attracted by the interest.”
For Shen, sport offers a “global language” for communicating with consumers but the unique appeal of Wimbledon was impossible to deny.
“It’s kind of like art, not just sport,” he says. “We think we have a common value and a common spirit with Wimbledon tennis, because we’re not just a technology company. We like to combine art into our brand.
“The first time I visited Wimbledon, I fell in love with this place straight away. I think Wimbledon tennis has all this elegance, and its details express its spirit.”
That feeling of a cultural connection was one that Desmond shared.
“They’re about beautiful imagery and attention to detail,” he says. “What really attracted us was their obsession, like us. When we went to Shenzhen to see their flagship store and their factory, you saw that obsession about how they were trying to position their brand as a luxury, image-based smartphone. It’s as much about the camera as about the phone.”
The UK-based tennis major is seeking greater reach into the Chinese with its new Oppo partnership
Shen goes so far as to compare the arrangement to “two people falling in love”, but there is a straightforward, tangible exchange of commercial benefits here. Since its launch in 2004, Oppo has become one of the world’s biggest smartphone brands but it is a recent entrant in the European market and has only a limited footprint. Meanwhile, Desmond sees the need for Wimbledon to build its brand presence in Asia – “China in particular” – and believes this kind of partnership was always the way to achieve that.
“I mean, I ran a business for seven years in China and I know that trying to build your brand in China from a distance is difficult,” he says. “You’ve got to have some support.
“I think what Oppo will do as one of the biggest brands in China, in particular, and in India, is give us that sort of credence and give us that support, give us that media scale that we’ve been looking for. And again, we’ve wanted to work with a partner in Asia but we wanted to find the right kind of category.”
Shen describes Oppo’s approach to new markets as “glocal”, insisting, for example, that it seeks to recruit 90 per cent of its workforce in each territory domestically.
“We produce working opportunities,” he says. “That’s because we think we need to respect the local market, respect their culture, and it’s a great way to communicate with local people and for our brand to be loved by local people.
“For example, we opened our global design centre here in the UK before we started selling our mobile devices. We also cooperated with the Royal College of Art. We wanted to get designs that could communicate with local young people, so this is a great way of communication. We would like to bring them a different user experience.”
That commitment, he says, is one of the reasons for Oppo’s gradual approach to international expansion so far.
“We don’t just think sales or business is the most important thing,” he suggests. “If we thought that way, we could have entered the European market a long time ago. However, we started slowly and steadily within the Chinese market, then we went to South Asia and to India, steadily, step by step. And now we’re coming to Europe.”
The Wimbledon association will now be folded into that strategy, and both sides have a view that goes far beyond the five-year term of the initial contract.
“I think success will be going beyond five years,” Desmond says. “We have a reputation for not swapping partners in and out dramatically. We have partners like Rolex who’ve been here 40 years, IBM 30 years, Slazenger 130 years. So success to us would be having longevity with a partner, having mutual respect for each other’s brands and not trying to reposition somebody’s brand in a different way.”
Shen adds: “I believe Wimbledon tennis chooses its partnerships carefully. For example, they have a long-term supplier in Rolex. We think this is not just about business. They choose partnerships when they have mutual interests and spirit.”
A new direction for the Wimbledon commercial project
For Desmond, the Oppo deal both breaks new ground and fits the character of Wimbledon’s existing portfolio. There is a rule of thumb at the AELTC, he notes, that the current partner count of 15 is “probably about right”.
“What we try and do with all of our partnerships is identify something that they can celebrate with their brand,” he explains. “I think for them, it will be the imagery and the beauty and the photography. So I think it’s going to be more about the camera aspect, and then obviously using the smartphone to distribute that content and celebrate it.”
In that respect, Oppo will complement the efforts of other partners like IBM, which offers “the clarity of their data, that kind of blue-chip stamp of the accuracy of what they do”. But the very fact of its status as the AELTC’s first Asian sponsor hints at how the AELTC commercial strategy is heading in a “more global” direction.
“If you look back at the history of the club,” Desmond says, “some of our more long-established partners have tended to be UK and European-focused. And if you look at the last two or three years in particular with Oppo coming on board, we announced American Express last year who will come on board this year, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolex who’ve been with us for 40 years – these are big, global brands. I think, more and more, we want to celebrate that sort of global partnership.”
Rolex has been a partner of Wimbledon for several decades
Those at Wimbledon are as conscious as anyone else that there is about to be a generational shift in the game of tennis, and Desmond argues that we will be “seeing more and more sports success coming from Asia”.
“I think that’s going to grow. Particularly in China, where we’re seeing the government getting behind sport in a big way,” he continues. “India has always had hugely talented sports stars, not just in cricket but even in tennis. Back in the 70s and 80s, we had the Armitraj brothers here with their success.
“I think for us, it’s about building our brand in territories where we believe new champions will come from and new participants are going to come from. If we get people to play and celebrate tennis more, and certainly be celebrating tennis on grass, then that’s a great thing for us.”
In a bid to expand its own brand beyond the two-week window of its tournament, the AELTC is keen to further public affections for grass court tennis, whether its name is attached or not. It is working with events like the Fever-Tree Championships at London’s Queen’s Club, and tournaments at Eastbourne, Nottingham, Stuttgart, and Majorca, and Desmond hopes that “Oppo will participate in the grass court season as well”.
“We talk about ‘putting shoulders’ on it – having the grass court season, qualifiers, and even the week after the Championships, and celebrating what took place,” he explains.
Wimbledon has its own activities in place to broaden that season, from its under-14s Road to Wimbledon tournament, which has been played in India, China, Japan and Hong Kong and is planned for South America, to Wimbledon Rematch 1980, a three-day Secret Cinema-style experience which will take place across the city in Wembley ahead of this year’s tournament. Described as an ‘immersive experience’, it will combine technology and theatrics to let fans to relive the days of McEnroe, Borg and Chrissie Evert.
“We’re trying to build [the grass court season] into a six-week franchise,” Desmond adds, “but you’re still going to have that huge spike sitting there.”
Retired British tennis star and AELTC board member Tim Henman, Oppo vice president Brian Shen, AELTC commercial and media director Mick Desmond (L-R) at the partnership signing ceremony
The changing face of Wimbledon
Desmond is speaking across from the emerging No1 Court, where renovations are due for completion in time for the 2019 tournament in a few weeks’ time. The court will become the second at SW19, after Centre Court, to feature a roof, while a number of VIP suites have been built in to help “bring hospitality into the heart of the grounds”.
“We used to have marquees very much to the southern end of the grounds, in front of the clubhouse behind Centre Court,” Desmond says. “We’re going to build a very specific hospitality proposition there and we’ve moved most of the marquee holders into the brand new suites you see here. I think the difference there is that there’s 15 brand new suites at that level, all with these fantastic windows and balconies actually overlooking live play, so it’s going to be a change.”
The grounds here are subject to rolling upgrades. There is “healthy competition” between the different Grand Slam venues – Roland Garros, whose French Open precedes Wimbledon, is in the midst of a €360 million revamp – while Desmond says an AELTC team has recently visited the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to pore over the innovations there.
“The whole thing, really, is about upgrading everything we do,” he adds. “We look at other sports, not just tennis. The three other Grand Slams are obviously all improving their facilities but we look at other sports. We’ve just come back from Augusta where you can see what they’ve done for their hospitality clients, what they’ve done for the players with this fantastic new driving range and the facilities there. We try and take lessons from the best around the world.”
The AELTC recently acquired the lease to Wimbledon Park Golf Club as the Grand Slam seeks to expand
Integrating these changes into the traditional Wimbledon look and feel is key – Desmond talks about putting a “Wimbledon spin” on imported concepts – but the evolution of the grounds is in no way finished.
“We tend to look at master plans in ten-year cycles, so we’re coming to the end of the current master plan here, which is the roof on No1 Court and the brand new hospitality suites,” Desmond explains. “The next stage of the masterplan will begin from 2020 onwards. We’ve always owned the golf course across the road but we didn’t have the lease, so we’ve now bought that lease out which means we have ownership of the whole thing now.
“And we’re kind of in the planning stage for the next couple of years in terms of how we keep the beauty of Wimbledon – the sense of tennis in an English garden – but expand our site. We’re going to more than double the size of our site. That’s exciting, but it’s a challenge. And the whole idea is to bring the qualifications here – they’re currently not held here, they’re at Roehampton five miles away – and to build more facilities and try to open some of those facilities, certainly around the golf course, to the community. And again, try and encourage more people to play tennis.
“And it won’t stop. By the time we get to 2030, 2040 will be the next iteration of the masterplan.”
A roof is being added to No1 Court as Wimbledon develops its 'masterplan'
Every part of the day at Wimbledon, Desmond says, is a part of the brand, from the Queue for non ticket-holders to the digital offering. There are separate apps for those at the grounds and those watching from afar – Oppo will create a Mandarin-language product and its promotions will be used to encourage fans to share their experience, though services will continue to be platform-agnostic.
“It’s one of those bucket list experiences,” Desmond adds.
“We want to create the greatest stage in world tennis. You can prepare it, you can future-proof it, you can dress it, and then you hope by doing that the players arrive and get a sense of being somewhere special, and they play above their levels.”
Both Desmond and Shen are open to the possibilities that their new partnership holds, whether in the chance for Oppo to explore the uses of 5G and the artificial intelligence of things (AIOT), or for Wimbledon to spread the word to new audiences in ever more influential territories.
“We set ourselves aspirations,” Desmond says. “I think complacency is our biggest enemy. The day that we think that we’ve cracked it is the day that we’ll probably fall flat on our face.”
Few events in sport are as defined by their traditions at the Championships at Wimbledon.
Between the all-white dress code for players, the green and purple colour scheme, the meticulously kept grounds, Pimms, strawberries and cream as well as the layers of protocol for participants and spectators, these conventions are a core part of its identity.
Yet as much as its organisers have leaned into those aspects in recent years, they have also embraced innovation, updating the experience in south-west London and expanding digital output immensely.
Now the grass court Grand Slam has its first Asian sponsor, and its first official smartphone partner. Chinese brand Oppo has signed a five-year deal with the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) which also marks the company’s first partnership in the UK, following earlier deals with Spanish soccer champions FC Barcelona, cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) and the International Cricket Council (ICC).
The announcement was made in late April in a room looking out across from the expanding No1 Court, which has been furnished with a new roof and hospitality suites as part of a long-rolling package of upgrades around SW19.
Former British number one Tim Henman, a four-time Wimbledon semi-finalist, was in attendance, along with AELTC chairman Philip Brook, in the rare company of both the men’s and women’s singles trophies. On hand to share some of the details of the new agreement were AELTC commercial and media director Mick Desmond and Oppo vice president Brian Shen.
Oppo will be building its promotional activities around Wimbledon on the photographic capabilities of its new smartphones, making the most of the signature imagery the event provides. The partnership’s benefits go far deeper than that, however, to support the ambitions of each party in opposite corners of the world.
“It’s a very young brand,” says Desmond. “It’s 11 years old. I think the smartphone versus a more traditional category of brand is a much better fit for us because, really, we’re really trying to capture the current young generation of China and the next generation of China as well as an older generation of China. You’re seeing far more participation in sport in China taking place; if over the next five, ten, 15, 20 years, we can catch that curve with people like Oppo, that would be fantastic.”
A commercial exchange and a love affair
The AELTC, Desmond says, had been on the lookout for a partner in Asia for some time but it was Oppo that made the initial approach. “We knew that they’d had a relationship with Barcelona for a number of years, and also the IPL,” he says. “So we were attracted by the interest.”
For Shen, sport offers a “global language” for communicating with consumers but the unique appeal of Wimbledon was impossible to deny.
“It’s kind of like art, not just sport,” he says. “We think we have a common value and a common spirit with Wimbledon tennis, because we’re not just a technology company. We like to combine art into our brand.
“The first time I visited Wimbledon, I fell in love with this place straight away. I think Wimbledon tennis has all this elegance, and its details express its spirit.”
That feeling of a cultural connection was one that Desmond shared.
“They’re about beautiful imagery and attention to detail,” he says. “What really attracted us was their obsession, like us. When we went to Shenzhen to see their flagship store and their factory, you saw that obsession about how they were trying to position their brand as a luxury, image-based smartphone. It’s as much about the camera as about the phone.”
Shen goes so far as to compare the arrangement to “two people falling in love”, but there is a straightforward, tangible exchange of commercial benefits here. Since its launch in 2004, Oppo has become one of the world’s biggest smartphone brands but it is a recent entrant in the European market and has only a limited footprint. Meanwhile, Desmond sees the need for Wimbledon to build its brand presence in Asia – “China in particular” – and believes this kind of partnership was always the way to achieve that.
“I mean, I ran a business for seven years in China and I know that trying to build your brand in China from a distance is difficult,” he says. “You’ve got to have some support.
“I think what Oppo will do as one of the biggest brands in China, in particular, and in India, is give us that sort of credence and give us that support, give us that media scale that we’ve been looking for. And again, we’ve wanted to work with a partner in Asia but we wanted to find the right kind of category.”
Shen describes Oppo’s approach to new markets as “glocal”, insisting, for example, that it seeks to recruit 90 per cent of its workforce in each territory domestically.
“We produce working opportunities,” he says. “That’s because we think we need to respect the local market, respect their culture, and it’s a great way to communicate with local people and for our brand to be loved by local people.
“For example, we opened our global design centre here in the UK before we started selling our mobile devices. We also cooperated with the Royal College of Art. We wanted to get designs that could communicate with local young people, so this is a great way of communication. We would like to bring them a different user experience.”
That commitment, he says, is one of the reasons for Oppo’s gradual approach to international expansion so far.
“We don’t just think sales or business is the most important thing,” he suggests. “If we thought that way, we could have entered the European market a long time ago. However, we started slowly and steadily within the Chinese market, then we went to South Asia and to India, steadily, step by step. And now we’re coming to Europe.”
The Wimbledon association will now be folded into that strategy, and both sides have a view that goes far beyond the five-year term of the initial contract.
“I think success will be going beyond five years,” Desmond says. “We have a reputation for not swapping partners in and out dramatically. We have partners like Rolex who’ve been here 40 years, IBM 30 years, Slazenger 130 years. So success to us would be having longevity with a partner, having mutual respect for each other’s brands and not trying to reposition somebody’s brand in a different way.”
Shen adds: “I believe Wimbledon tennis chooses its partnerships carefully. For example, they have a long-term supplier in Rolex. We think this is not just about business. They choose partnerships when they have mutual interests and spirit.”
A new direction for the Wimbledon commercial project
For Desmond, the Oppo deal both breaks new ground and fits the character of Wimbledon’s existing portfolio. There is a rule of thumb at the AELTC, he notes, that the current partner count of 15 is “probably about right”.
“What we try and do with all of our partnerships is identify something that they can celebrate with their brand,” he explains. “I think for them, it will be the imagery and the beauty and the photography. So I think it’s going to be more about the camera aspect, and then obviously using the smartphone to distribute that content and celebrate it.”
In that respect, Oppo will complement the efforts of other partners like IBM, which offers “the clarity of their data, that kind of blue-chip stamp of the accuracy of what they do”. But the very fact of its status as the AELTC’s first Asian sponsor hints at how the AELTC commercial strategy is heading in a “more global” direction.
“If you look back at the history of the club,” Desmond says, “some of our more long-established partners have tended to be UK and European-focused. And if you look at the last two or three years in particular with Oppo coming on board, we announced American Express last year who will come on board this year, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolex who’ve been with us for 40 years – these are big, global brands. I think, more and more, we want to celebrate that sort of global partnership.”
Those at Wimbledon are as conscious as anyone else that there is about to be a generational shift in the game of tennis, and Desmond argues that we will be “seeing more and more sports success coming from Asia”.
“I think that’s going to grow. Particularly in China, where we’re seeing the government getting behind sport in a big way,” he continues. “India has always had hugely talented sports stars, not just in cricket but even in tennis. Back in the 70s and 80s, we had the Armitraj brothers here with their success.
“I think for us, it’s about building our brand in territories where we believe new champions will come from and new participants are going to come from. If we get people to play and celebrate tennis more, and certainly be celebrating tennis on grass, then that’s a great thing for us.”
In a bid to expand its own brand beyond the two-week window of its tournament, the AELTC is keen to further public affections for grass court tennis, whether its name is attached or not. It is working with events like the Fever-Tree Championships at London’s Queen’s Club, and tournaments at Eastbourne, Nottingham, Stuttgart, and Majorca, and Desmond hopes that “Oppo will participate in the grass court season as well”.
“We talk about ‘putting shoulders’ on it – having the grass court season, qualifiers, and even the week after the Championships, and celebrating what took place,” he explains.
Wimbledon has its own activities in place to broaden that season, from its under-14s Road to Wimbledon tournament, which has been played in India, China, Japan and Hong Kong and is planned for South America, to Wimbledon Rematch 1980, a three-day Secret Cinema-style experience which will take place across the city in Wembley ahead of this year’s tournament. Described as an ‘immersive experience’, it will combine technology and theatrics to let fans to relive the days of McEnroe, Borg and Chrissie Evert.
“We’re trying to build [the grass court season] into a six-week franchise,” Desmond adds, “but you’re still going to have that huge spike sitting there.”
The changing face of Wimbledon
Desmond is speaking across from the emerging No1 Court, where renovations are due for completion in time for the 2019 tournament in a few weeks’ time. The court will become the second at SW19, after Centre Court, to feature a roof, while a number of VIP suites have been built in to help “bring hospitality into the heart of the grounds”.
“We used to have marquees very much to the southern end of the grounds, in front of the clubhouse behind Centre Court,” Desmond says. “We’re going to build a very specific hospitality proposition there and we’ve moved most of the marquee holders into the brand new suites you see here. I think the difference there is that there’s 15 brand new suites at that level, all with these fantastic windows and balconies actually overlooking live play, so it’s going to be a change.”
The grounds here are subject to rolling upgrades. There is “healthy competition” between the different Grand Slam venues – Roland Garros, whose French Open precedes Wimbledon, is in the midst of a €360 million revamp – while Desmond says an AELTC team has recently visited the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to pore over the innovations there.
“The whole thing, really, is about upgrading everything we do,” he adds. “We look at other sports, not just tennis. The three other Grand Slams are obviously all improving their facilities but we look at other sports. We’ve just come back from Augusta where you can see what they’ve done for their hospitality clients, what they’ve done for the players with this fantastic new driving range and the facilities there. We try and take lessons from the best around the world.”
Integrating these changes into the traditional Wimbledon look and feel is key – Desmond talks about putting a “Wimbledon spin” on imported concepts – but the evolution of the grounds is in no way finished.
“We tend to look at master plans in ten-year cycles, so we’re coming to the end of the current master plan here, which is the roof on court one and the brand new hospitality suites,” Desmond explains. “The next stage of the masterplan will begin from 2020 onwards. We’ve always owned the golf course across the road but we didn’t have the lease, so we’ve now bought that lease out which means we have ownership of the whole thing now.
“And we’re kind of in the planning stage for the next couple of years in terms of how we keep the beauty of Wimbledon – the sense of tennis in an English garden – but expand our site. We’re going to more than double the size of our site. That’s exciting, but it’s a challenge. And the whole idea is to bring the qualifications here – they’re currently not held here, they’re at Roehampton five miles away – and to build more facilities and try to open some of those facilities, certainly around the golf course, to the community. And again, try and encourage more people to play tennis.
“And it won’t stop. By the time we get to 2030, 2040 will be the next iteration of the masterplan.”
Every part of the day at Wimbledon, Desmond says, is a part of the brand, from the Queue for non ticket-holders to the digital offering. There are separate apps for those at the grounds and those watching from afar – Oppo will create a Mandarin-language product and its promotions will be used to encourage fans to share their experience, though services will continue to be platform-agnostic.
“It’s one of those bucket list experiences,” Desmond adds.
“We want to create the greatest stage in world tennis. You can prepare it, you can future-proof it, you can dress it, and then you hope by doing that the players arrive and get a sense of being somewhere special, and they play above their levels.”
Both Desmond and Shen are open to the possibilities that their new partnership holds, whether in the chance for Oppo to explore the uses of 5G and the artificial intelligence of things (AIOT), or for Wimbledon to spread the word to new audiences in ever more influential territories.
“We set ourselves aspirations,” Desmond says. “I think complacency is our biggest enemy. The day that we think that we’ve cracked it is the day that we’ll probably fall flat on our face.”
