Naomi Osaka’s agent surprised by sponsors backing despite pregnancy

Stuart Duguid, the agent for Naomi Osaka, has praised Allyson Felix and her brother Wes for making it simple for him to work with sponsors like NIKE while the former World No 1 was expecting her first child.

Sponsors have been known to be difficult during player’s absences from the sport with Elina Svitolina’s tale revealing some of those challenges.

Osaka took maternity leave earlier this year after announcing the birth of her first child.

She and her rapper partner Cordae revealed last month that they had given birth to a baby girl, whom they called Shai.

American Olympic hero Felix helped pave the path for how sponsors today handle female athletes who are pregnant, according to Duguid, who has been working with Osaka for eight years.

When Nike demanded that Felix accept a 70% wage reduction after learning of her pregnancy, Felix decided to go public with her conflict with the sportswear company by writing an opinion piece for the New York Times. Although it ultimately caused her to leave NIKE, the business, like with many others, gradually changed its philosophy to make sure pregnant women do not receive such unfavourable treatment.

On the most recent episode of the Mountaintop Conversations by Saysh podcast, Duguid admitted he was worried about the sponsors’ reactions after he told them Osaka was expecting a baby.

“Obviously when Naomi first told me it was like just obviously delighted for her and happy for her, but then there’s the moment where you realize you have to make all these calls [to the sponsors],” Duguid said.#

Prior to co-founding EVOLVE with Osaka, Duguid worked for Lagardere Sports and IMG. He said that nearly every interaction he had with the sponsors of the four-time Grand Slam winner proceeded without a hitch. He said that he thought of NIKE as the most significant sponsor and that, as a result of Felix’s fight a few years ago, they were extremely understanding of Osaka’s pregnancy.

“I would say, say almost every single conversation went really, really well. I’ll be very honest, the most important conversation for me and for us was probably our Nike conversation, which wasn’t really a conversation thanks to what you had done. So that situation was already covered in the past. There was a cause in the contract which defined exactly what would happen if Naomi was pregnant and that all came on the back of your experience with that,” he said.

“We have to give them a lot of credit, I think they learned so many lessons from your experience too. I think they’ve been great with it in terms of ‘do you want to keep your line going? Do you want to do stuff in maternity? Do you want to do baby?’ Like, they’ve given you all the options and being great and I think that is all due to you. So, thank you.”

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