Bloomberg: how Sharapova became the richest athlete

Maria Sharapova is in too good a mood for the athlete, who may soon lose in the tournament. It is mid-March and she has just made a two-hour journey from her coastal home in Los Angeles to Indian Wells, California, where the BNP Paribas Open professional tennis tournament is taking place. This tournament is owned by Larry Ellison, the head of a software company, ranking seventh on the list of the richest people in the world. Over the past five years, through 100-million investments and with the help of such sponsors as Rolex and Emirates Airline, he turned the BNP Paribas Open into one of the most important tournaments in the world of tennis.

“For me, coming here is more personal,” says Sharapova, a 28-year-old, referring to Indian Wells. “Many of my friends and members of my family come here to see it.” The only exception was her Dolce dwarf spitz, which stayed at home due to the fact that the Indian Wells air is too dry. "It is bad for his coat."

During the press conference, before the start of the competition, Sharapova, dressed in black and white sports pants and a gray T-shirt, answers all questions with ease. This year, she is firmly entrenched in second place in the ranking of the Women's Tennis Association. Number two. Only a few tennis players in the history of this sport knew how to hit the ball as clean as it does on both sides of the court, and with her height in 188 centimeters, she had every chance to succeed on the courts with both hard and turf . However, she spent her career in the shadow of Serena Williams, number one in the tennis world - perhaps even in history. 33-year-old Williams ignored the Indian Wells tournament from 2001, when the audience booed her during the finals: then she and her family decided that this move was motivated by racial hatred. Now she is back, and the organizers of the tournament, the media and the audience are trying their best to please her. And Sharapova again became number two after Williams. And as before, she insists that it does not upset her in the least. “You always want to play against the best, and she is the best,” emphasizes Sharapova.

Like Williams, who from childhood played tennis in Compton, California, Sharapova also had a rather difficult childhood and adolescence. Her parents left for the Siberian city of Nyagan four months after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, fleeing from the unfavorable environmental situation in their native Gomel. Over the next several years, the Sharapova family moved from place to place in Russia several times. When Maria was six years old, on the tennis court in the resort town of Sochi, she was noticed by Martina Navratilova, who advised the girl's parents to pack up and send her to the Nick Bollettieri Academy in Florida. “The only thing I remember is how I packed my books,” Sharapova said in an ESPN documentary on her childhood. “I told my mom I want to take a piece of my country with me.”

Mother Mary could not get a visa, so Sharapova and her father had to start a new life together. When Sharapova was a teenager, her father worked several jobs — he helped at the construction site, swept the floor in grocery stores — to pay for tuition at the academy. Because of his busy work schedule, his father and daughter almost did not see each other - Yuri often left food for Maria to warm her up. “I spent a lot of time alone,” she told an ESPN channel interview.

But their plan worked, and by the beginning of the 2000s, Sharapova had become a sensation. She was very similar to her compatriot Anna Kournikova, but at the same time she played better. In addition, she had the determination that Kournikova never had. Sharapova beat off powerful linear balls from the far edge of the court, often accompanying their blows with shouts. In 2004, at the age of 17, she defeated Williams in the Wimbledon final. Soon after, she won the WTA Final Championship. Since then, she won one victory at the Australian Open and two wins at the French Open, bringing her number of victories in Grand Slam tournaments to five.

Virtually no one doubted that Sharapova and Williams would eventually turn into sworn enemies who would play medals at major tennis tournaments, like John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg. Sharapova defeated Williams in their next tournament - and since then, she has never been able to defeat her. The score of victories in their face-to-face meetings was 17-2 in favor of Williams, since Sharapova lost to her in the last 16 meetings. This imbalance is partly due to a series of serious shoulder injuries, which Sharapova received in the middle of the 2000-s, which significantly weakened its delivery. This deprived her of the weapons she needed in order to gain an advantage at the beginning of the game, keep pace in the middle and regain points in case of failures. "Yes, I rarely won her, but if I rise to a level where I compete with someone like Serena, then I play well," she said after losing Williams in the Australian Open final this year. - I give myself a chance to try to win over it, and until that happens. But I'm not going to go home without trying again. This is not for me, I was raised otherwise. I am a rival. "

Although Williams is older, Sharapova fights not only with her rival, but with her body. In April, she suffered a leg injury, which forced her to refuse to participate in the Russian Federation Cup. After that, many began to wonder when she would complete her sports career. Meanwhile, Williams continues to set all sorts of records. Possessing the 19 award winning Grand Slam championships, she made an attempt to beat another record. Recently, she has demonstrated the second longest series of victories in her career, winning 27 victories in a row. If Williams doesn’t slow down, she can win every conceivable award this season.

The title of the second racket also has its advantages, especially if you are tall blonde. According to Forbes, Sharapova is the highest paid athlete in the world, and she has topped the list for the past 10 years. In 2014, she earned 22 a million dollars in advertising — this includes an eight-year 70 millionth contract with Nike, a five-year contract with Evian, as well as contracts with Cole Haan, Tag Heuer and other brands. Williams, who also entered into advertising contracts with Nike and Gatorade, lags behind Sharapova by more than 10 million annually.

Regardless of where a tennis player grew up, in Compton or in the shadow of an emergency nuclear power plant, tennis somehow creates an aura of pearls and horses for playing polo around him, which luxury trends are so fond of. Tennis audiences are not as numerous as football or basketball audiences, but tennis is a worldwide sport that brings a much greater income. At the BNP Paribas Open, almost 90% of viewers are college graduates, and 70% of viewers have an income in excess of 100 thousand dollars a year. At the US Open, the average spectator income is 156 thousand dollars. “In the minds of the general public, tennis, as well as horseback riding, golf and sailing, are associated with glamor and wealth,” says Luca Soltz, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, specializing in the elite sector.

Shortly after the Indian Wells tournament - she lost to the Italian tennis player Flavia Pennetta - Sharapova had already left for Florida for a cocktail reception sponsored by Porsche. She has been a full-fledged ambassador of this company on the world stage for the second year, so she arrived there in a black Panamera, a sports sedan driven by her agent Max Eisenbad, who represented her since she turned 12. When she got out of the car, everyone once again saw how she was taller than her 41-year-old agent from New Jersey.

Gently touching the car body, Sharapova poses in front of photographers. She looks like a model at a car show, but Victoria Wolrapp, head of sales for Porsche, says they didn’t sign a contract with Sharapova for that. Porsche is the most profitable car brand in the world, but 85% of the company's customers are men. The company’s management has tried for many years to develop a sales strategy for its cars for women, and in his opinion, if the brand is associated with the image of a famous sportswoman, this will help correct the imbalance. Therefore, they signed a three-year contract with Sharapova.

Dressed in a floral print dress and yellow high heels, Sharapova begins to sweat. “Get her a tissue,” Eisenbud quietly tells one of the employees. Sharapova discreetly runs a napkin over her chin and cheeks. A few minutes later, when her promotional duties have already been completed, she admits that she was a fan of Porsche cars long before signing a contract with the company. “I like driving a sports car,” she says. “I know it’s rare for women, but it’s a very strong feeling.” A week later, with an unexpected break in her schedule - due to a loss to Australian Daria Gavrilova - Sharapova tweeted a photo of a Porsche wheel that was seen by her 1,58 million fans.

Can Sharapova sell cars? “It's hard to say,” admits Volrapp. - But for us it is a question of image. It was extremely important for us to find someone who matches our brand, and it seems to us that Maria and Porsche are suitable for each other. ” Anita Elbers, a professor at Harvard Business School who wrote on creating a Sharapova brand in 2010, found out that a celebrity advertising campaign could increase the company's revenues by 4%. In the case of brands like Nike, it’s quite simple to measure the Sharapova effect: the company sells a line of clothes for playing tennis (which Maria developed), and the demand for these things is an unequivocal measure of her contribution. In the case of watches and cars, it is much more difficult to evaluate its contribution. But, according to Elbers, elite brands derive tangible benefits from contracts with the stars: “Companies would not do this if they didn’t see the point.”

In 2012, Sharapova created the Sugarpova brand, under which lip-shaped candy and bubble gum in the form of tennis balls were first produced, and then clothing and fashionable accessories began to be produced. She spent 500 thousands of dollars from her own savings to finance this company, which sold 30 thousands of packages of candy in the first six months of its existence. “I love tennis, I don't see myself in the commentary box,” she says. “Only if my boyfriend is playing” - Bulgarian player Grigor Dimitrov, with whom she meets with 2013 of the year. “I don’t remember when I just sat and watched the whole tournament on TV.”

But Sharapova is not yet ready to finally leave the sport. In the offseason, she lives on a fairly intense schedule of training, and she still manages to reach the finals of most tournaments. Serena Williams's endless losses could completely destroy the confidence of any tennis player, but Sharapova does not give up. “I think Maria is playing well,” Williams said during the 7 press conference in May after both tennis players reached the semifinals of the Open Championship in Madrid (neither reached the final).

Every time, regardless of whether she loses or wins, Sharapova does the same thing. She goes behind the back line, turns to the stands, straightens the strings on the racket, and then turns to the grid, like a soldier taking a drill stand. There is a barely visible expression of tension on her face. Then she throws up the ball to make a serve - and it all starts over.