52 contacts to the deal How Odermatt's manager landed Red Bull

Ski star Marco Odermatt is one of the most sought-after testimonials in Swiss sport. This is also thanks to his manager Michael Schiendorfer.

Not a day without Marco Odermatt. The 27-year-old overall World Cup winner smiles at mere mortals on a daily basis - on TV, on posters, in online advertising. How he sits cool with Roger Federer in the VIP lounge at the airport, joking, laughing and threatening to miss the last call because the two of them seem to forget everything around them.

The ski star has of course earned this with outstanding performances in the World Cup and at World Championships as well as at the Olympic Games. With his charm and mischievousness, which he is said to possess, he is also ideally suited as a testimonial for any Swiss company.

Manager Schiendorfer remembersOdermatt gave a terminally ill fan a last laugh

But Odermatt's manager has also played a part in his commercial success: Michael Schiendorfer, the 56-year-old agent and communications expert who has managed Odermatt for seven years. They sat across from each other for the first time in September 2016. And Schiendorfer immediately sensed that Odermatt knew what he wanted - especially financially.

"He asked: Hey, can you get me certain sums of money? He had very clear ideas about what he needed," Schiendorfer explains in an interview with blue Sport. Not every athlete deals with numbers as a 19-year-old. "It was immediately clear to him that he had to get between 80,000 and 100,000 francs extra as sponsorship for his enormous training effort."

The manager's reaction? "I'd only been in the business for about 20 days and I was naturally careful not to slow him down. I said: Wow, he has clear ideas. That's also a clear message. And I actually knew what I had to do from day one."

"Marco trusts people"

Since then, the collaboration has flourished. Odermatt is the boss, but there is a lot of trust in his manager, as he affirms. "One of Marco's strengths is that he asks the right questions and then lets go. Then he trusts people."

Schiendorfer takes care of almost everything that needs to be taken care of. Media work, for example: "I've got into the habit of reading articles critically. And if something is wrong, I try to correct it or discuss it with the journalist. I think the ping-pong game is part of it." It helps that Odermatt also has a natural, unbiased approach to the media. "In public relations, it's very important that people immediately sense whether someone is being honest and being themselves. And Marco is himself."

Schiendorfer takes care of the fan mail: "After a win, we receive around 400 fan reactions." As a manager, you have to make sure that an athlete doesn't lose contact. But it's impossible to answer them all: "There's often only one autograph card. We can't fulfill every special request. That is impossible. We get at least five requests a day for collaboration, for dissertations, from kindergarten to doctoral theses. We can't fulfill these requests."

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52 contacts to the deal

A milestone in the collaboration between Schiendorfer and Odermatt was the deal with Red Bull. After Odermatt and his manager had made the collaboration official, Schiendorfer asked which sponsors he could think of that could finance his dream of climbing to the top of the world: "Which brands do you think are cool? And Red Bull was one of them. And today I can say with a certain amount of satisfaction and joy: of the ten brands we had in mind, we got eight." In the case of Red Bull, it was also crucial that Odermatt really liked the drink. "I thought it was a good match. That's why I said: okay, then it's worth asking."

It took bite and persistence. Until the Red Bull deal finally came about, the two parties were in contact 52 times - in person, in writing, digitally. And at some point, the okay came from Fuschl am See: "Okay, that's still exciting. The boy is developing well. We're really interested." It also helped that Odermatt had won five gold medals at the Junior World Championships in Davos in 2018.

Schiendorfer doesn't even have to say that the deal is now worth more than the 80,000 to 100,000 that Odermatt had originally hoped for - it's a known fact. Schiendorfer says: "In the end, there were several companies that wanted him." Red Bull's training facilities, logistics options and support in the event of injury would have spoken in his favor. "Red Bull is not just any sponsoring partner for the World Cup, they are people who have a proven track record of keeping athletes at the top for several years."

In Odermatt's case, no one will dispute that.

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