Is Verstappen's business value seriously underestimated?

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Verstappen has no advantage in terms of commercial value, and to date, he has only 8 personal brand endorsements, and his income outside the field is only a quarter of Hamilton's, which is far from his position as the king of the track. 25-year-old Verstappen, undervalued by the market?

Author丨Xu Xianqiang

Picture丨From the Internet

The 73 years since the F1 championship was founded, there have been two of its most tedious periods, the Ferrari and Schumacher eras, and the Mercedes and Hamilton eras. Now, the Dugu Quest III has appeared, that is, Red Bull and Verstappen in the cockpit, they have once again let the championship that should have been fighting each other and Mars hitting the earth has lost suspense from the first minute.

Narrowly winning the last lap of the 2021 season, successfully defending the 2022 season with absolute dominance, winning eight consecutive races in the first half of the season, with only 10 races left after the summer break, Max Verstappen becoming the Treble of F1 is almost a certainty, and he is currently 125 points ahead of the standings, 440 laps more laps than the second place, and completely crushing everything.

But in terms of commercial value, Verstappen has no advantage, so far he has only 8 personal brand endorsements, and his off-field income is only a quarter of Hamilton's, which is far from his status as the king of the track. 25-year-old Verstappen, undervalued by the market?

Not long ago, Forbes announced the 2023 global earnings list of athletes aged 25 and under, and Verstappen ranked third, behind Mbappe of football and Keller Murray of the NFL, ahead of Haaland of football and Doncic of basketball.

But the vast majority of Verstappen's income comes from the team's salaries and bonuses, amounting to 48 million euros, while his income outside the race is only a measly 3.2 million euros, which is exactly one-fifth of Mbappe and one-third of Haaland.

Is it the brand side that does not wait to see Verstappen? Perhaps the F1 project itself is the main reason, after the American Liberty Media Group took over F1 in 2016, although it saved the previous declining audience, the team alone made the game boring, and the willingness of cross-field brands to throw money into it was generally low, resulting in a low overall sponsorship amount, and a growing gap with tennis, basketball, football and other fields.

The first big brand to sponsor Verstappen was the Swiss luxury watch Tag Heuer. Tigermed entered F1 40 years ago, and from 1983 to 1987 it was a OEM engine supplier, with Porsche supplying engines and bearing the Tiger brand for McLaren racing. In 2016, Tiger Heuer became a sponsor of Red Bull Racing, closely aligned with Verstappen's trajectory.

In 2015, Verstappen, who was just 18 years old and had just turned super driver's license, jumped from F3 to F1 to represent Toro Rosso. The following year he was promoted to Toro Rosso and won his first race at the Spanish Grand Prix, setting a new record for the youngest race in F1 history.

On August 30, 2016, in Amsterdam, TAG Heuer hosted a grand party, attended by media journalists, business bigwigs, entertainers, and more than 200 people to celebrate Verstappen's victory. At the scene, TAG Heuer presented the racing genius teenager with a CAZ101B, a private custom watch with an orange color as the main color and a resounding name: Dutch glory.

In the world of racing, star drivers are sometimes more appealing than teams, and they have long-term and stable partners such as the Schumacher family and Deutsche Bank, Hamilton and Mercedes-Benz. Obviously, TAG Heuer is also deeply tied to Verstappen, which extends from the sponsoring driver to the sponsoring team.

After becoming the overall winner of F1, Verstappen signed with Dutch supermarket brand Jumbo Supermarkets, Dutch cable TV Ziggo, Dutch jeans brand G-Star Raw, used car trading platform CarNext.com. And, of course, its own owner, Red Bull.

According to data disclosed by Forbes, the total sponsorship amount of these brands in the past year was only 3.2 million euros, which shows that Verstappen was only a "cabbage price" before. Except for Red Bull and CarNext, the others are all local Dutch brands, which obviously has a lot to do with Verstappen not having time to get out of the circle.

It wasn't until February of this year that Verstappen, who holds two world titles, saw a significant increase in business value. He first signed with Heineken to become the face of Heineken 0.0. Later, he joined hands with the sports game EA Sports.

It is worth mentioning that Heineken is also from Verstappen's hometown of the Netherlands, although it has long become an internationally renowned brand, but for unknown reasons, the largest brewery in the Netherlands, and the most famous athletes in the Netherlands, did not successfully join forces until this year. It was also since 2016 that Heineken became a regular in the F1 arena, and in addition to becoming the official sponsor of the race, the drivers were Coulthard, Rothberg and Ricardo. They hold beer bottles and tell the story of "driving without drinking" from different angles. Without exception, none of these drivers were Dutch.

In any case, Verstappen's single endorsement fee in 2023 has finally exceeded the million. According to foreign media reports, Verstappen signed a "multi-million-dollar" endorsement contract with Heineken, and the contract was signed for 6 years. For the 2023 season, the words "Player 0.0" were finally printed on Verstappen's helmet.

In the latest creative commercial for the Heineken brand, Verstappen hangs out with friends at a bar and has been repeatedly chosen as the designated driver to send friends home because he is "the best driver". This commercial subtly emphasises that while our best drivers come from the F1 world, the criteria for deciding who is a driver should be based solely on who hasn't been drinking. Unless, of course, heineken 0.0 is being drunk.

Verstappen is a typical "second generation", his father is former Dutch F1 driver and Schumacher's former teammate Jos Verstappen, and his mother is the famous Belgian go-kart driver Sophie Cooper. Born in Belgium, he chose Dutch nationality and played for Red Bull in Austria, so Verstappen is extremely popular throughout the continent, with almost half of the European Grand Prix being his home turf.

Its fans have formed a huge "orange army", dressed in bright uniforms, running in every European arena. This was unheard of in previous F1s, and even the popular Schumacher and Raikkonen fans could not create such a big momentum.

Fan loyalty undoubtedly brings higher commercial value, and although Verstappen's fierce style and unreasonable overtaking behavior in the early years of his career was repeatedly disliked by other drivers, and once earned the nickname "Tower Cannon", as long as he is backed by a group of iron fans, he can stand tall on social media.

Now in his ninth year in F1, Verstappen has stepped on Hamilton's shoulders and surpassed his rivals in annual salary and bonuses, but still can't match it in the commercial market.

Hamilton currently has a commercial value of $285 million, and British riders still top the 2022 athlete earnings rankings with $80 million. With the exception of $50 million in salary, all other receipts came from off-site. Bose, Puma, Qualcomm, Monster Energy, Petronas, IWC, L'Oréal, Union Bank of Switzerland, Tommy Hilfiger, Mercedes-Benz are all solid cooperative brands.

Since he first entered F1, Hamilton has deliberately created his own "Esquire" character, not only pursuing high taste in clothing, but also fighting with Hollywood, coupled with unique skin tones, and off-site news is continuous. In recent years, he has invested in energy conservation and environmental protection business, keeping up with the trend everywhere.

The 38-year-old Lewis Hamilton has become one of the "1 billion+ clubs" in the world of sports, and the members of this club are only Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Messi, Ronaldo, Federer, Mayweather and a few others, each of whom is a GOAT-level player.

F1's number one competitiveness is performance, followed by the driver's skill and talent. With Red Bull's dominance in recent years, Verstappen will continue to dominate the circuit, surpassing Schumacher's and Hamilton's seven titles a few years later. But his commercial value undoubtedly has a lot of room to be explored, compared to the personality charm of Schumacher's "sportsman" and the out-of-the-loop effect of Hamilton's "Esquire", Verstappen who is "born for racing" needs more labels. In people's minds, he will always be Red Bull shirt + jeans. The days when there are no races are all about practicing simulators, driving go-karts, GT3, and even games that only play racing games. Always in the racing circle. In this day and age, F1 has limited appeal to young people, and a pure racing driver is still too low a value for the brand. What heights can Verstappen reach in the world of sports in the future? Time will tell.