Twenty-two-year-old Japanese Naomi Osaka is the highest-paid female athlete in the world and now she’s joining premium sake brand SOTO as an investor and creative consultant.
Forbes’ latest annual report notes that Osaka earned $3.4 million in tennis prize money and $37.4 million from her massive endorsement portfolio that includes Nissan Motor, Shiseido, Yonex and Nike, which was willing to shell out roughly $10 million annually to win the two-time Grand Slam champion away from Adidas.
Osaka’s role as a creative consultant to SOTO will be to lend her generational and cultural insights to the brand as it grows and promotes itself, with proper responsibility, to a new generation of social drinkers. SOTO intends to use the tennis star’s emotional and cultural intelligence, and her growing status as a role model for women of all ages and races, to introduce historic elements of Japanese culture and craftsmanship to millions of people around the world through the brand’s marketing and the experience of enjoying Japanese sake.
The former WTA world No.1 explains why she decided to support an award-winning alcoholic beverage brand SOTO:
As a native of Japan, I am proud to be involved with a product that is authentically Japanese. SOTO’s status as a made-in-Japan, traditional ‘Japanese sake’ is another major reason I’m supporting the brand.
Japanese sake is one of the fastest growing alcohol categories in North America over the last decade and it is expected to expand by a further 51% by 2022. SOTO is a premium sake brand crafted in Japan, run by two North American entrepreneurs and headquartered in Miami, Florida. Award-winning SOTO emphasizes the taste, experience, heritage and craftsmanship of the finest Japanese sake.
