She's rich because she represents 2 rich countries - but she's in no way global enough to sell some mundane crap like Sodastream on billboards. That's global.

I see where you're coming from, you're just overstating her "globalness". There are plenty of countries where people would just go "Osaka who?"

Again, women tennis is not as visible as men tennis in many countries, and tennis as a whole is not top dog in most of them (apart from Fed-Nadal-Djoko of course, but those levels of marketing reach won't be seen again soon).

Today is was out there jogging, in a big city of southwestern Europe, and I saw billboards of Mbappè "selling" sunglasses, and of Messi "selling" fucking Sodastream :) Compared to what actually "sells" here, Osaka has got no reach. Her "dual representation" did good to her finances, but her face is a seller only in selected countries, rich ones, but still very selected.

Women tennis doesn't have the visibility you think it has, in many countries.

Actually I find it very funny that in this age of widespread globalization, we still got regionalized booms, padel in Europe vs pickleball in the USA. I guess globalization still has limits to this day.

I thought Time used to boast about its global reach? A baseball player looks like a weird choice in this regard.

(btw I still have to look at past AotYs, maybe a lacrosse player won last year and I'm oblivious)

Would it be really that different from us experiencing a noon full solar eclipse once in a lifetime? It doesn't seem a oh-so-enticing concept for a story, nowadays.

Well, for sure nobody can really say they're NOT cool :)