Arturo Coello's Sponsorship Empire: Rolex, On & Padel's First Luxury Athlete

In early 2026, Rolex made a decision that sent a clear signal to the entire sports business world: padel has arrived. The Swiss watchmaker, the most prestigious sports sponsor on the planet — signed Arturo Coello as a brand ambassador. He is the first padel player in the decades-long history of the Rolex Testimonee programme.

To understand the magnitude of this, consider the company Coello now keeps. The Rolex Testimonee list reads like a who's who of sporting greatness: Roger Federer, Carlos Alcaraz, Tiger Woods, Lindsey Vonn, Jack Nicklaus. These are not just great athletes, they are athletes who transcend their sport, who carry global name recognition and aspirational appeal. Rolex does not sign players who are merely excellent. It signs players who are iconic.

Coello is 24 years old. He became one of the youngest Rolex sports ambassadors in the current Testimonee programme. That alone would be remarkable even in tennis or golf. In padel, a sport whose current global tour only launched in 2022, it is extraordinary.

According to reporting by Sportico, who first covered the deal, Rolex approached Coello directly. This is significant: it means the world's most coveted sports sponsor identified padel's future independently and made the first move. No agent needed to pitch padel to Rolex. Rolex came to padel.

One week before the Rolex announcement, On Running, the Swiss performance brand backed by investor Roger Federer, made its own padel debut. The brand signed Arturo Coello as its first padel athlete, covering shoes and training apparel.

On's timing is deliberate. The brand went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, has grown to a market capitalisation exceeding $8 billion, and built its sports portfolio around Federer, Iga Swiatek, and Ben Shelton, athletes with global reach and a story that aligns with On's premium positioning. Choosing padel as the next sport, and Coello as the face, signals that On's product and marketing teams see padel as a growth market with exactly the affluent, athletic demographic they target.

The choice of Coello specifically is not simply about padel either. On seeks athletes with cultural resonance, players who appear in lifestyle media as well as sports media. Coello's age, his appearance in fashion and luxury contexts (see: Golden Goose), and his clear trajectory toward being one of the most recognisable faces in European sport make him an almost ideal fit for a brand that straddles performance and lifestyle.

Here is the detail that tells you everything about the padel sponsorship market in 2026: Coello and Agustín Tapia are the world's #1 pair. They play together. Yet Coello walks on court with Rolex on his wrist and On on his feet, while Tapia competed through the Cancún P2, Miami P1, and Riyadh P1 without a major headline sponsor.

This is not a reflection of Tapia's talent, he is statistically one of the two best players alive. It reflects how young and unsaturated the padel sponsorship market still is. In tennis, every top-100 player has multiple brand deals. In padel, even the world #2 can compete at the highest level without luxury backing. That gap is where the sport's commercial upside lives: as padel grows, the sponsorship pie expands for everyone, not just Coello.

Despite the sponsorship gap, Tapia has earned €1.23M in career prize money through tournament results alone, proof that on-court earnings remain the foundation of a professional padel career. See Tapia's full earnings breakdown →

Sports brands do not allocate Rolex-level marketing budgets to niche sports. When Rolex decides a sport is worth pursuing, it is because the sport has crossed a threshold of global reach, television audiences, and aspirational brand association. The Coello signing is, in effect, Rolex's public declaration that padel has reached that threshold.

The commercial data supports that view. Padel prize money has grown from approximately €3 million on the 2022 World Padel Tour circuit to an estimated €15 million-plus across the 2026 Premier Padel season, a five-fold increase in four years. No other racket sport has grown at this rate in the modern era.

The sport's institutional recognition is accelerating too. Padel is confirmed as a medal sport at the European Games Istanbul 2027, the first major multi-sport event to include it at a senior level. The International Olympic Committee's observer programme has registered padel officially. Brisbane 2032 is an aspirational target in padel governance circles. If Rolex is investing now, it is betting that padel's audiences in 2030 will look very different from padel's audiences in 2024.

Historically, when Rolex enters a sport, other luxury brands follow within 18 to 36 months. Rolex moved into tennis in the 1970s; luxury watch and fashion brand involvement in the sport exploded over the subsequent decade. Rolex moved into golf in the 1960s; the sport is now the most commercially saturated in terms of luxury brand partnerships. Padel, in 2026, is at the beginning of that curve.

The proof came faster than anyone expected. One week after the Rolex announcement, WHOOP, a $10.1 billion wearable company backed by Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James, signed a 3-year partnership with the entire Premier Padel tour. All players on the circuit will receive WHOOP devices. When a company worth $10 billion chooses your sport, that is not a test. That is a commitment.

To understand how early padel is in its commercial lifecycle, it helps to compare Coello's position with the closest tennis analogue: Carlos Alcaraz. Alcaraz is a seven-time Grand Slam champion with a sponsor roster that includes Rolex, Nike, and Babolat. His estimated total annual income, including an estimated €15–20 million in endorsements plus ~€15M in prize money over his career, makes him one of the highest-earning young athletes in any sport.

Coello's estimated annual endorsement income of €500,000–€1,000,000 is approximately 20 times smaller than Alcaraz's. But that gap is not a measure of Coello's commercial appeal, it is a measure of how young padel is as a commercial property.

Tennis's current commercial scale took 30 years to build. Wimbledon, the US Open, the global broadcast deals, these are the result of decades of infrastructure investment. Padel has grown from zero to a global professional circuit in under a decade, and prize money has already hit eight figures. The trajectory of growth is steeper than tennis was at a comparable stage.

If padel reaches even 10% of tennis's current commercial scale by 2032, top players will earn €5 million or more per year in endorsements. Coello, who will be 29 at the Brisbane Games, arguably in his prime, is positioned to be the primary commercial beneficiary of that growth.