Sponsors Would Have Dropped Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi would have been a pariah in his own sport if his drug-taking exploits had been made public while he was playing, it was claimed last night.

Leading sponsorship experts said that Agassi’s new status as a revered philanthropist would protect him from rejection by the sponsors who now support his charitable causes. 

But they were shocked by the revelation that Agassi took crystal methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug, and then lied to the tennis authorities.

If that had become public knowledge at the time, they believe he would have been thrown out of tennis so fast there would have been scorch marks on the lawns of Wimbledon. 

“There is no question he would have been banned and rejected by every sponsor he had,” Dominic Curran, director at Synergy, the sport sponsorship consultancy, said. “It was not just a question of taking performance-enhancing drugs or a recreational drug but a substance that has horrific consequences. 

“Any sponsor would have dropped Agassi like a hot potato and could not countenance being associated with an offense and a lie on that scale.” Agassi became one of the most sought-after sportsmen in the world, racking up more than $100 million in endorsements during his career — putting him in the same league as figures such as Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher and Roger Federer. 

Michael Phelps, the eight-times gold medal-winner at the Beijing Olympics last year, discovered just how fast sponsors can react when Kellogg, the food company, refused to renew its $1 million endorsement deal with him after he was pictured appearing to smoke cannabis through a glass pipe, known as a bong, in January. 

But Agassi, with Steffi Graf, his wife and winner of 22 grand-slam singles titles, have devoted themselves to their charitable foundation, which has raised more than $40 million to educate underprivileged children. His deal with Longines, the Swiss luxury watchmaker, has also been used to raise money for charity. 

Deals like that will go on if and when Agassi’s image is rehabilitated, in spite of his drug-taking confessions from a difficult past.