LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 2: Maria Sharapova attends The Fashion Awards 2024 Presented by Pandora at the Royal Albert Hall on December 2, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Lionel Hahn/Getty Images)

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When Maria Sharapova is inducted into the 2025 Class of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, her five Grand Slam titles, No. 1 ranking, and silver medal in the 2012 Olympics will be the athletic accomplishments lauded. However, what kept Sharapova in the spotlight, and on Forbes’ highest-paid female athlete list for 11 years, was personal branding.

“Maria was the first athlete to really have a brand marketing campaign,” said Stacey Allaster, Chief Executive of Professional Tennis at the USTA and U.S. Open tournament director, in an interview with the Tennis Channel earlier this week. “Instead of just doing, you know, sponsorships, endorsements, I’ll take equity and that started a much longer entrepreneurial experience for Maria.”

Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova preceded Sharapova in raking in more cash in endorsements than prize money. However, Sharapova pioneered a new model of entrepreneurship, reshaping how female athletes leverage their success into lucrative business deals that last beyond their post-sports careers.

“Now as a mother of a 3-year-old, leading businesses and investments, I have a very different perspective, and my everyday routine is very different, but I still get to carry all the disciplines of my sport,” said Sharapova in a press conference at the ITHF. “The lessons that I learned throughout the years are applied every single day. I’m just so grateful for them, because I feel like I still in every venture and especially as a mom, the patience, the tenacity, you know, being able to pivot at any moment are all things that I got to learn for so many years on the job every day.”

Sharapova Capitalized On A Winning Wimbledon in 2004

Sharapova catapulted to stardom when she upset Serena Williams at the 2004 Wimbledon Championships. A fresh-faced 17-year-old, Sharapova, like Kournakova, was Russian, tall, blonde and spoke impeccable English, Madison Avenue’s dream.

Sharapova could have easily gone the Kournikova route, content to pocket as much endorsement money as possible. However, her agent, Max Eisenberg, helped the budding star develop a brand strategy, one partially borrowed from golfer Tiger Woods.

“Mark Steinberg was a colleague of mine who worked on the 13th floor (at IMG), so I spent a lot of time with him to figure out how Tiger was managing his deals. What he’d like to do is take three weeks of the year to do his shoots, he would do five shoots a week in those weeks,” Einsenberg told Andy Roddick in a 2024 podcast interview.

According to the New York Times, by the end of 2005, Sharapova had seven-figure contracts with Motorola, Canon, TAG Heuer, Colgate and Land Rover. She also inked an eight-year deal with Nike that included royalties from her signature ballet flat, which was then part of Nike-owned Cole Haan.

Einsenberg had Sharapova seek equity, not just endorsements.

Sharapova: Winning Creates More Opportunities

Winning is an athlete’s key to brand building. The reason people wanted to “be like Mike” was because Michael Jordan kept winning. Tiger, Peyton Manning, and Simone Biles make better pitch people because they are champions.

During her pre-induction press conference, a reporter asked Sharapova how she might navigate her career in the age of social media, when tennis players are also influencers.

“I think ultimately you can’t forget what your core work is, what your core mission is,” said Sharapova. “I think we can all agree that the more that these players win, the more opportunities they’ll get, and what they choose to do with their opportunities is a very individual choice.”

Sharapova also spoke about the need to balance business opportunities with championship goals.

“I understand both sides of it, because you want to maximize your earnings, and you want to maximize your potential, but you also want to preserve your quality, and your quality is what makes you a champion,” said Sharapova.

“At the end of the day, this is a business, and Maria is the CEO of Sharapova Inc, as Venus is of Venus Williams, Inc, and Serena and Naomi, and the list goes on and on,” said Allaster. “And the one thing about all of these champions, number one, you’ve got to win on the court first, and then the business will take care of itself, and that requires a lot of discipline.”

Sharapova CEO Of Her Image And Likeness

Long before NIL, TikTok, and influencers, Sharapova went the Oprah route of building a brand in the male-dominated business world. She delegates duties, but not control of her image and brand. Sharapova closely monitored her investments and business ventures.

“When you’re the one that’s actually paying a bill, when you’re saying yes or no, that’s challenging,” Sharapova said in a Forbes interview in 2016. “But isn’t that the position that we want?”

One of the ways Sharapova developed her business acumen was by attending meetings with executives, even in her early 20s.

“There were so many brands that I worked, and I was actually in the meetings with them learning from these incredibly talented individuals. I got to selfishly learn from them and kind of grow my own knowledge,” she said. “I’ve always identified many parallels in business with sport. They’re both very team-oriented. They’re very competitive,” she said. “You don’t have that match point feel, but God, when you get a deal done, it’s a pretty special feeling.”

Sharapova Managed Media In Face Of Adversity

In January, 2016, Sharapova held a press conference to announce that she had tested positive for a banned substance. Suddenly, $30 million in endorsement deals was on the line.

The unexpected press conference had tennis fans and sports journalists speculating that Sharapova might be retiring. Sharapova used those rumors to lighten the mood ahead of announcing she’d tested positive.

“If I was going to announce my retirement, it would not be in a hotel with this fairly ugly carpet,” she said, garnering laughter from the press.

Sharapova’s ability to manage her public image was crucial in navigating the worst period of her career. Some sponsors put their relationship with her on hold. A few sponsors dropped her. But Sharapova got out in front of the story, created a narrative of innocence based on ignorance.

Despite serving a 15-month ban, Sharapova weathered the doping scandal. She never went into hiding. She graced red carpets and showed up at Vanity Fair Oscar parties with Roger Federer, Serena Williams, and other tennis greats.

The Tennis Hall of Fame mentions the drug ban on Sharapova’s biography, but the subject doesn’t come up in the many celebratory interviews. It’s business as usual for one of tennis’ most notable brand ambassadors.

“I never felt overwhelmed, because I knew where my ultimate passion was, but I also knew that as a woman, I had a certain time frame. I was very well aware of that from a young age,” Sharapova said. “I made a conscious effort of setting up meetings from a very early age to make sure that I had a foundation as strong as it possibly could to set me up for the next stage of my life.”