Yokohama Rubber Secures ATP Partnership 

Leading Japanese tyre brand Yokohama Rubber has sealed a new multi-year partnership deal with elite men’s tennis body ATP.  

The global partnership sees Yokohama, the ATP Tour’s first official tyre partner, back a number of ATP Tour events from its top-line ATP Masters 1000 and secondary ATP 500 tournament classes.

Under the deal, Yokohama will also provide exclusive fan engagement initiatives at the ATP’s high-profile season-ending ATP Finals, which will be held in Turin, Italy in 2024.

Besides the ATP Final, Yokohama will play a similar role at the ATP Masters 1000’s Monte-Carlo Masters and Internazionali d’Italia, as well as the ATP 500’s Queen’s Club Championships and Hamburg European Open.

Yokohama branding will be emblazoned on and off the court and around the event at all partnered ATP Tour events.

As a Gold-tier partner, Yokohama content will also be integrated year-round on ATP social media and digital platforms. The partnership begins at the ongoing ATP Monte-Carlo Masters, which is title sponsored by luxury watch brand Rolex.

According to ASN data, Yokohama Tyres have invested almost US$1.9m— contributing a mere 1% for their category—since Q321 in the Asian sponsorship landscape. Spends for the first half of 2024 have also been underwhelming with US$63k and US$114k invested in Q124 and Q224 respectively, below the quarterly average investment of US$168k since Q321. 

Unsurprisingly,  much of Yokohama  spend (96.3%) is focused on Japan, the brand’s domestic turf, and most of the key deals are in the motorsport landscape, namely Super GT Championships (US$374k), Super Formula (US$239k), Fuji Speedway (US$206k)  and Formula Drift Japan (US$126k). Prior to that, Yokohama was known for its high-profile shirt sponsorship deal worth US$300m over five years with Premier League club Chelsea FC, which ended in the 2019/20 season.