Extending her reach beyond the court

When Maria Sharapova was 13, training on scholarship at the Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida, a reporter asked her if she had the chance to win Wimbledon or make $20 million in endorsements, which would she choose? She said, without hesitation, "I would choose to win Wimbledon, because then the millions will come."

One does not become the highest paid female athlete in the world without recognizing that the greatest potential for earnings comes not from winning championships, but from endorsement deals, particularly with fashion and sportswear brands.

Ms. Sharapova, now 24 years old and the sixth ranked women's singles player, made $24.5 million from June 2009 to June 2010, according to Forbes, about $4 million more than her nearest competitor, Serena Williams.

Last year, she renewed her contract with Nike in an expanded eight-year deal that is estimated to be worth as much as $70 million, the most ever for a female athlete, including royalties from clothes she designs for Nike. She also designs shoes and handbags for Cole Haan and endorses luxury brands like Tiffany and Tag Heuer, and the electronics company Sony Ericsson.

Extending her reach into the unexpected, she is about to announce a new partnership with Jeff Rubin, the man who helped create Dylan's Candy Bar in 2001 and a chain of candy shops inside F.?A.?O. Schwarz toy stores (called F. A. O. Schweetz) in the 1990s, to develop her own brand of candy and sweets. Gumballs will be shaped like tennis balls, and gummy candies will be packaged in containers shaped like tennis-ball cans. The name of her brand? Sugarpova.

Despite recent progress in her professional comeback after a shoulder operation in 2008 - on June 2 she played in the semi-final of the French Open, where she lost to Li Na - Ms. Sharapova is laying the groundwork for what her life will be like after tennis.

It is her competitiveness off the court that has made for a more riveting match in recent years, as Ms. Sharapova fights for turf among those athletes who aspire to become brands.

"I've been very competitive by nature from a young age, whether it was eating a bowl of pasta faster than somebody else, or always wanting to be the first one in line," she said. In her own words, she now has "money that will feed my great-grandchildren." (Ms. Sharapova said she is looking forward to starting a family with her fiancé, Sasha Vujacic of the New Jersey Nets basketball team.)

During her painful and frustrating rehabilitation after the shoulder surgery, she read an article that shocked her, about the financial problems facing former professional athletes.

Determined to set Brand Maria in motion well before she was through playing tennis, she called her agent, Max Eisenbud, and told him to contact all her sponsors.

"Tell them I'll do whatever they want, whatever they need," she said.

For her collaboration with Cole Haan, introduced in August 2009, Ms. Sharapova insisted the company include a ballet flat. The $138 shoes are now among the top-selling items for the entire brand.

As part of her new deal with Nike, the company last year finally began producing and selling a line based on her on-court attire.

"Could she one day have a brand Maria Sharapova at Nike like Michael Jordan's?" Mr. Eisenbud said. "I don't want to come across as an egomaniac. There's only one Michael Jordan. But if we did a good job with the Maria Sharapova collection, could all the young girls, in 10 years, want to wear Maria Sharapova? That's what I want to find out."

It seems relevant to ask Ms. Sharapova, at 24, if she had the chance to win Wimbledon again, or have a brand on the scale of Air Jordan, which would she choose?

"The answer is I would win Wimbledon over anything," she said. "Wimbledon is not something you can buy. A brand is something you can build."

The New York Times