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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It's 2009, a cold January morning. A 23-year-old grips the wheel of a two-day-old $300,000 Ferrari. Overhead, aeroplanes are coming into land at Manchester Airport.
He zooms down into a tunnel and then he smashes into the wall. The front of his sports car crumples and the windscreen smashes.
He gets out of the car, his tall body ripped with muscles. The car is totaled, but he's OK, with barely a hair out of place on his perfectly quaffed head.
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Chapter 2: What was Cristiano Ronaldo's early life like in Madeira?
He jumps into a Bentley that was following right behind him. There's no time to lose. He has to be on the pitch within the hour.
Because this footballer never misses training and it's his dedication, obsession, some would say, that will make him a billionaire.
MUSIC Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Every episode, we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money.
We take them from zero to their first million and then from a million on to a billion. My name is Zing Zing and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster. And I'm Simon Jack. I'm the BBC's business editor.
And on this episode, we've got a billionaire who is actually the subject of several requests from listeners.
Yeah, a few of you have requested this one, including Mark, who emailed to say, I just wanted to say how much I enjoy listening to the podcast. Thank you, Mark. It's consistently interesting, well-researched and very engaging. As a suggestion for a future episode, I'd love to hear the story of Cristiano Ronaldo. He's a slightly different kind of billionaire, a genuine rags to riches story.
Be fascinating to see him through the good, bad or just another billionaire lens. He said, I really think it will be kind of tough. Interesting.
Well, if you're a football fan, whether he's good or bad probably depends on whether he's playing for your side or not.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: How did Ronaldo's career begin at Sporting CP?
So image rights are really fiercely contested over in contract negotiations. So a deal will be struck, maybe 50-50 split between player and club. Although we don't know what the Ronaldo split with Real Madrid was.
Yeah, and also just don't forget about these video games like FIFA and what have you. The image of that player in that shirt, so clearly the shirt is the intellectual property of the club. The image of the player in that shirt is, you know, so you can see how they fight over this. And there's lots of money involved, so that's why image rights become really important.
And a player's value to a football club then is not just about how good they are on the field, that's the foundation of it, it's about their earning power as a global celebrity. And if you remember... Real Madrid had a great rival. One of the great rivalries in international football is Barcelona versus Real Madrid. And at the same time he was at Real Madrid, Lionel Messi was at Barcelona.
So you had these two and sports fans and people and advertising people and whatever love these kind of dynastic rivalries. It was a perfect combination of factors and influence at the same time. But he was also making headlines off the pitch. The night before his Real Madrid deal was confirmed, he was photographed at an L.A. club with Paris Hilton. I haven't heard from her for a while.
What's she up to?
She's currently very invested in the longevity industry.
Is she?
Oddly, yeah. She's got a cryogenic freezer or something in her house.
Oh, really? OK. A crisis PR consultant said, call me a cynical old publicist, but it's a marriage made in franchise heaven and an act of sublime stuntsmanship. It cannot be a coincidence. He noted Ronaldo had huge appeal to the US American Latino market. Important. Very lucrative market.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Ronaldo face during his teenage years?
Okay.
So whatever he says about etching CR7 into his plates and homes, he really needs to get a better sculptor.
Yeah. And he got into a chain of hotels. He opened a gym franchise. All these CR7 products like the underwear, the fragrances, the hotels, the gyms, all on licensing and partnerships. And it's a pretty great way of making money because there's no capital at risk here. All you're using is your image, your name, what have you.
This, once you've got it, is kind of free and the earning power is enormous. So in terms of return on capital, it's a dream.
Interestingly, the one brand he owns that doesn't bear the CR7 name is a hair transplant clinic called Insparia, which is quite interesting. I think it ties into his whole metrosexual image, right? I mean, male hair transplants are a huge industry.
Yeah, speaking as someone in their mid-50s, actually just now late 50s, I have to say, which is sad to say. Don't out yourself on air. Okay, I'll out myself on air. I can tell you the hair transplant was not a thing when I was in my 20s and 30s. It was unheard of.
And certainly if you had one, you wouldn't want to talk about it. No, for sure.
Well, we've mentioned the Nike partnership, but the end of 2016, he got the ultimate cash cow, a lifetime deal with the biggest and richest sport brand ever. This is only the third lifetime deal they had made. And we've actually covered the other two on this podcast.
LeBron James and Michael Jordan reported this lifetime deal could be worth more than a billion dollars over time, an annual fee of just under $18 million. Plus, Nike gave Ronaldo performance bonuses like an extra $4.5 million for winning the Ballon d'Or in 2016 and again in 2017. So the more successful he is on the pitch, the more the sponsors pay him for his increased profile.
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Chapter 5: How did Ronaldo transition from Manchester United to Real Madrid?
You know, Nike was the big factor in the Jordan fortune. Most of his wealth is derived from his salary on the pitch. Thanks very much, I think, to the tail end of his career in Saudi.
Yeah, that's undeniable. So what does the future hold for Cristiano Ronaldo? Well, I mean, he's getting on a bit in football terms. He's going to have to stop playing the sport at some point. He's also, you know, not just a footballer, right? He's like a case study in how you can monetize global celebrity and sporting fame. He's still the most followed person on Instagram. Wow, I just find that.
That's incredible. Yeah, incredible. He's still earning 18 million each year off the pitch from Nike. And he also now has five hotels in the CR7 hotel chain and over a dozen locations for his hair transplant clinic. So if you ever wanted to fix your hairline in a Ronaldo approved way, you can visit one of those clinics.
So that is the Cristiano Ronaldo number seven superstar story. It's now time to score him in a bunch of categories. It's kind of a bit of fun, really, between nought and ten on some different categories.
Well, the first category is wealth. We'll judge power, controversy, legacy later on. But in the wealth stakes, you know, he's relatively minor, $1.4 billion. That's according to Bloomberg. According to Bloomberg. Forbes hasn't listed him that yet, which is quite interesting. Yeah. But boy, does Ronaldo know how to spend it.
He sure does. I went to Portugal to see a friend and we played a bit around the Gulf just outside Lisbon. And there was this vast home being built right over the golf course. And I just kind of said... I think I know who that must be. And it was. It was Cristiano Ronaldo having this whopping great house built right there on the golf course. One of many, many properties.
He's got a Gulfstream G200 jet that cost about $19 million.
He's got 20 supercars. He's got a Bugatti, Maserati, Bentley, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce Phantom, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, etc. So he even bought his agent, Jorge Mendes, a Greek island. Good Lord. And he recently got engaged to Georgina. The ring had a diamond the size of a walnut, I'm told. Apparently around 37 carats, nearly $5 million. Wow.
When we do these things, it's not just how much money they have, but how they spend it. I think he scores quite highly in that category for sure.
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