He might have lost at Wimbledon and broken the hearts of a nation’s sports fans but Andy Murray has turned himself into a financial winner. Sponsors are lining up to offer him deals worth millions of pounds to make him Britain’s richest sportsman.

Adidas, Nike and Reebok will serve the first volley of offers for his shirt and shoe contracts, with the starting price thought to be £3 million a year plus bonuses. But they will be just the first after Murray captured the imaginations of the huge Wimbledon crowds, sending ticket prices soaring to a record £20,000.

The surly Scottish teenager of the past, who never bought anything for more than £100, suddenly blossomed into a mature sportsman of rich promise, with experts predicting that it was a case of when, not if, he wins a grand-slam tournament after he lost in the semi-finals to Andy Roddick.

Murray is signed with 19 Entertainment, the agency founded by Simon Fuller, who discovered the Spice Girls and propelled David and Victoria Beckham to an estimated joint fortune of £125 million.

But Murray, 22, could surpass even the Beckhams with a long career at the top of tennis ahead of him. With Rafael Nadal, the world No 1, struggling with long-term injury and Roger Federer heading towards the twilight of his illustrious career, Murray, ranked No 3 in the world, is heir to tennis’s riches.

Nigel Currie, director of BrandRapport, a leading sponsorship company, said: “Wimbledon turned into something of a letdown but look at the effect Murray had on the tournament. He was absolute box-office gold. It all points to Murray becoming Britain’s biggest-earning sports star.

“Murray is young and he has his own sort of charisma. Now he has set Wimbledon alight, fans will want to follow him all over the world — at the US Open next month, for example. That means the really big sponsors will want in — and quickly. And when they take a sports star on to the world stage, they are prepared to pay.”

It was Fuller who helped to turn David Beckham into a sex symbol and one of the biggest names in sport, particularly in the lucrative markets of the Far East. In Murray, he has a young superstar with an edgy personality, a dry wit and the sort of street cred that Tim Henman, a four-times Wimbledon semi-finalist, could never muster.

That showed at the turnstiles as Wimbledon made a mint out of Murray. The All England Club counted 500,000 fans through the gates over the two weeks of the tournament, while the BBC also revelled in massive audiences, particularly the 12.6 million viewers for his fourth-round encounter under the new Centre Court roof against Stan Wawrinka.

Murray is signed with Fred Perry, the British brand that bears the name of the last British male winner, 73 years ago. That £750,000 deal is likely to be blown away by the big guns of sports clothing.

Meanwhile, there is a new book with Random House, which wants to publish the paperback version of Murray’s autobiography, Hitting Back. That could be worth £500,000 to add to the £1 million a year Murray is making from Highland Spring, the mineral water manufacturer. Murray offered to take a cut on his £2 million-a-year contract as ambassador for RBS, the troubled bank. Its executives are now understood to consider this deal the best sponsorship money they ever spent.