Winter Olympics' bra-flashing golden girl Jutta Leerdam to pocket $13MILLION a year - with the help of Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce factor ahead of her wedding to Jake Paul

Winter Olympics superstar Jutta Leerdam could rake in a staggering eight-figure payday after claiming gold and silver medals for speed skating at the Milano-Cortina Games.

The Netherlands athlete - fiancee of YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul - has lit up the Games in Italy after breaking the Olympic record to win gold in the 1,000m, and dazzled as much for her heroic feats on the ice as her personal brand off it.

Leerdam is reported to have been able to make $1million (£730,000) for briefly exposing her Nike sports bra in the aftermath of the win, with the sportswear brand just one of her numerous sponsors, which include SKIMS, Hema, and Red Bull.

But according to Professor Rob Wilson, a leading authority on the business and finance of sport, Leerdam's earning potential is only expected to grow after the Closing Ceremony, and even follow in the footsteps of the Games' most bankable star - and fellow Red Bull athlete - freestyle skier Eileen Gu.

Although Leerdam is unlikely to hit the heights banked by Premier League footballers, Prof Wilson notes her earning capacity is by no means insignificant.

'Given her the combination of podium success with the high social media engagement that she's clearly had, you're probably talking somewhere between £8m and £10m ($10.9m-$13.6m) per year, particularly during those peak Olympic cycles,' Wilson said.

'I think that would be achievable if she continues to diversify beyond that sort of traditional sportswear, into products that will really accumulate her opportunity, whether that's into things like beauty, wellness, or luxury goods.'

Leerdam has over 6.3m followers on Instagram, with a single post documenting her day after winning gold garnering 1m likes. Although her relationship with Paul has exposed her to new audiences, his various posts celebrating her success earned far fewer.

'Her value proposition, first of all, stands independently of Jake Paul,' Prof Wilson continued. 'This is about her and what she's able to do.

'I think the cross-audience exposure through that high profile relationship can really accelerate awareness in certain markets, a bit like we saw with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce a couple of summers ago.

'Because what brands are really looking for is that kind of that massive audience upside - so she's got kind of authenticity, the performance legitimacy, and then the audience alignment, which is really powerful. She's got all three of those, which is quite rare in a single athlete.

'She's built a really solid social following through consistent storytelling, through training, through competition, through lifestyle. That brand narrative, I think, is really, really powerful, because it's embedded, rather than sort of gifted overnight. It is hard earned.

'If you think about the the Nike deal - Nike don't sign athletes just because of who they're going out with or who they're dating. They look for what they would consider to be marketable champions with massive global upsides.

'Now, winter athletes are not on the same sort of level as a summer Olympic athlete. But the kind of move that Nike are making demonstrate the confidence that they've got in her and her long-term earning power.'

What is undeniable is that together, Paul and Leerdam represent a serious marketing prospect for brands.

Paul, whose business savvy saw him secure a £140m prize pot for his fight versus Anthony Joshua in December, is clearly wise to this, and is producing a documentary on Leerdam's Olympic journey as events in Italy unfold.

'She'll be able to break into markets that that he will be operating in, and we'll have followers that will be following his boxing and boxing-related outputs and and some of the broadcast deals that he's got,' Prof Wilson added.

'And then he will also be able to piggyback on some of her performance, which make them a highly visible and commercially viable marketing product as a couple.

'As I mentioned, we've only seen it with Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift most recently. And you have to go back to Posh and Becks (Victoria and David Beckham) to see the last time this happened (at a similar level).'

Equally unassailable is Leerdam's star status as the Games draw to a close, with only Chinese-American Gu the only athlete to have maintained such a presence in Milan.

'I get asked it literally, for every major event, who's the next star going to be, who's going to come out on top?' Prof Wilson said.

'The reality is that those superstars are born at those events and we don't know until the event takes place, who is really going to be the superstar of it.

'Think about the Summer Olympics, (Athletics) World Championship, football World Cups; somebody always emerges as the face of that competition, irrespective of the sport or what they do.

'I think she's captured, for me, the kind of opportunity and market for the Winter Olympics - and speed skating is just the medium by which she's achieved it.'

Click here to read article