Anthony Joshua‘s sponsorship and endorsement deals dropped by nearly 40 per cent during 2021, the year in which he was first beaten by Oleksandr Usyk, new accounts have revealed.
Joshua is a director of several companies under the banner of his 258 management company, which he runs with his manager Freddie Cunningham.
One of those is 258 Marketing, which is the organisation through which Joshua sells sponsorship, endorsements and anything else that makes use of his image rights.
In the year ending in February 2021, the company turned over £8.45m to return a profit of £6m, but the most recent 12 months, during which he was beaten by Ukrainian Usyk for the first time, have seen 258 Marketing return a profit of £3.9m from a turnover of £5.5m.
The report explains the drop as due to “third parties placing less value on the use of the fighter’s image rights”; in 2020, Joshua was still a three-belt champion of the world, status he lost to Usyk in a unanimous decision at the Tottenham Stadium in September 2021.
Joshua is currently in talks with Tyson Fury over an all-British heavyweight clash for the WBC belt which the self-styled “Gypsy King” won from Deontay Wilder in 2020.
Fury set Joshua a deadline last week to sign the contract or he would do a deal with Manuel Charr. Joshua said the papers were with his lawyers and that he would not be rushed into signing the wrong contract, and promoter Frank Warren subsequently convinced Fury to extend his patience while the two sides of the deal thrashed out the details.
If the fight is signed, there is a date reserved for 3 December, which Joshua’s camp say is too early although Fury is adamant he will fight on that night no matter who agrees to face him.
The bout will be extremely lucrative for both men, with Fury’s father John claiming this week that Joshua’s failure to step aside and let the WBC champion face Usyk in his place cost him as much as £100m, including £15m they would have paid him for relinquishing his mandatory rematch.
The much-anticipated showdown is also likely to boost Joshua’s sponsorship revenues internationally, the market in which he was damaged the most by defeat, it seems. His non-EU marketing earnings (excluding the UK) dropped from £3.58m in 2021 to £1.6m in 2022, although in no single territory did the figures hold steady: his EU earnings went from £1.4m to £1m and his UK turnover from £3.5m to £2.9m.
His accounts acknowledge that regrowth is expected in coming years, albeit with a “cautious” set of expectations and say that “the company is currently undertaking research and development to improve its sponsorship income from the provision of the fighter’s image rights”. There is also an admission that “competition from both within the UK and international markets” could damage their future profits.
Anthony Joshua loses nearly £3m in sponsorship after Usyk defeat
By Hassan Muaz
