Rafael Nadal’s second act has time on its side beyond the tennis court

{"text":[[{"start":8.46,"text":"Rafael Nadal may have retired from professional tennis two years ago, but his partnership with Richard Mille continues to pay dividends for the Swiss watchmaker. Since 2010, the 22-time Grand Slam champion has collaborated on 11 watches bearing his name, helping establish the company among the most expensive brands in luxury watchmaking."}],[{"start":30.52,"text":"According to Amanda Mille, the company’s brand and partnerships director, the relationship marked a turning point for the business founded by her father. “There’s before Rafa, and then there’s after Rafa,” she says, reflecting on its 25-year history. “That’s it.”"}],[{"start":46.28,"text":"The company’s growth over that period has been substantial. In 2010, Richard Mille says it sold 2,350 watches for revenues of SFr90mn (then around $87mn). The privately owned brand does not disclose its results today but, according to estimates from Morgan Stanley, it sold almost 6,000 watches last year, generating estimated sales of SFr1.75bn ($2.1bn). That implies average sales of $350,000 per watch, compared with $57,000 for Patek Philippe and $17,000 for Rolex, according to the bank."}],[{"start":85.56,"text":"Yet the partnership almost never happened. Nadal initially thought the approach was a joke. Told that a luxury watchmaker wanted him to wear a watch during matches, he dismissed the idea. “I said: ‘Impossible,’” he recalls, speaking to journalists at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Manacor, Mallorca. “Things on the wrist always bothered me.” He had never heard of Richard Mille, either."}],[{"start":108.4,"text":"The company’s founder, French watchmaking executive Richard Mille, travelled to Mallorca to meet Nadal in 2008. “Richard came to my parents’ house,” Nadal, now 40, remembers. “We talked for about five minutes, and then we went for lunch.”"}],[{"start":123.2,"text":"The pair began developing a watch that could withstand the demands of professional tennis without interfering with Nadal’s performance. The first prototypes were too thick and uncomfortable, digging into his wrist. Mille also wanted to incorporate a tourbillon, a complex rotating mechanism traditionally associated with delicate mechanical watchmaking, into a timepiece that would have to withstand the repeated shocks generated by Nadal’s powerful strokes."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":149.52,"text":"There were other practical difficulties. “I’m a guy who sweats a lot,” Nadal says. “The first prototypes didn’t work, because water got inside.”"}],[{"start":158.62,"text":"The resulting RM 027 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal appeared in 2010, establishing a collaboration that would become central to the watchmaker’s technical development and marketing. Rather than simply featuring Nadal in advertising campaigns, Richard Mille could demonstrate the durability of its watches by having him wear them during competition."}],[{"start":179.2,"text":"Nadal, known for his elaborate on-court routines, says he was convinced to wear the watch regularly only after it appeared to bring him luck. “I came from a very bad year in 2009,” he says, referring to a season disrupted by injury. “Then in 2010, I started wearing the watch at Roland Garros [for the French Open]. I won there and then I won Wimbledon and the US Open. It was a lucky charm.”"}],[{"start":204.36,"text":"His attachment to particular watches sometimes complicated the company’s plans to introduce new models. Wearing an unreleased design during a match could attract considerable attention, but Nadal was reluctant to change watches while he was winning."}],[{"start":218.16,"text":"The collaboration also helped establish Richard Mille’s wider approach to sports sponsorship. Alongside former Formula 1 driver Felipe Massa, Nadal was among the first of the company’s ambassadors to wear its watches during competition, demonstrating their ability to withstand the physical demands of elite sport."}],[{"start":235.24,"text":"The approach has since extended to other sports. Cycling champion Tadej Pogačar, who won his fifth Tour de France this year, has worn the Richard Mille RM 67-02 Automatic Extra Flat during races. Weighing 32g, the watch has been advertised on the secondary market for as much as £450,000."}],[{"start":255.16,"text":"“When you have someone wearing a watch playing tennis and it’s still working, it’s a really good compliment for the product,” says Amanda Mille. “But it was also an important step for the brand, to push the boundaries and go even deeper into the technical. It put the wind on our back.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":271.64,"text":"The Nadal watches also became a test bed for new materials and construction techniques. Richard Mille experimented with lightweight forms of carbon fibre and movements suspended inside cases using extremely fine cables, combining mechanical complexity with shock resistance and low weight."}],[{"start":289.76,"text":"Merrick Haydon, founder of sports marketing agency ThirtyThree18, believes the partnership gave Richard Mille something more valuable than conventional celebrity exposure. “Nadal didn’t simply give Richard Mille visibility,” he says. “He gave it credibility. It’s been a genuinely reciprocal relationship. Every time Nadal stepped on to the court wearing the watch, the brand’s technical positioning was being demonstrated rather than advertised. And it gave him a distinctive identity within the luxury world.”"}],[{"start":319.92,"text":"Nadal is more circumspect about his contribution to the company’s achievements. “It’s a success story,” he says of his sponsor. “But not because of me. Richard was able to put the brand in a position above the others. That’s how I see it.”"}],[{"start":334.36,"text":"The watches also reflected Nadal’s personal style. While the original RM 027 was black, subsequent models incorporated brighter colours, including orange, blue and gold. The RM 27-03 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal, introduced in 2017, featured the red and yellow of the Spanish flag."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":354.2,"text":"“Roger was classic, for older people, and I was younger,” Nadal says, comparing himself with his longtime rival Roger Federer, a Rolex ambassador. “I had long hair and I always had a great connection with kids. And kids like bright colours, with energy. So I always tried to play with bright colours, apart from Wimbledon in white, and the US Open in black.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":375.16,"text":"The technical demands continued to increase throughout the partnership. The 11th Nadal watch, the RM 27-05 Flying Tourbillon Rafael Nadal, arrived in 2024, the year he retired from professional tennis. Weighing just 11.5g without its strap, it could withstand shocks of up to 14,000g, according to Richard Mille. The company claimed records for both its weight and shock resistance in the category of hand-wound tourbillon watches. Its price was SFr980,000 before tax."}],[{"start":409.68,"text":"“Richard wanted to be different,” says Nadal of the company’s founder, who has since stepped back from day-to-day management. “He wanted to break the rules, and that’s probably why he looked at me as a good ambassador.”"}],[{"start":421.68,"text":"Amanda Mille describes the appeal more simply: “A rebel coming on to the court.”"}],[{"start":426.16,"text":"Nadal’s retirement has removed the competitive setting that made the partnership distinctive, but Richard Mille sees scope for it to continue. Other watchmakers have maintained relationships with tennis champions beyond their playing careers, including Rolex with Federer and Rado with Ash Barty. For Richard Mille, the challenge is how to extend a collaboration built around Nadal’s sporting performance into his life after tennis."}],[{"start":450.44,"text":"“He has a new life, so there should be new watches,” says Amanda Mille, although she does not confirm whether a 12th Nadal watch is in development or offer a possible launch date. “Like a baby: sometimes it comes early, sometimes late.”"}],[{"start":469.48,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1794582479_7423.mp3"}