Sharapova Is Expanding Sugarpova And Loving Every Minute Of It

Written by: Staff on 7th March 2013

Sharapova Is Expanding Sugarpova And Loving Every Minute Of It

epa03587436 Maria Sharapova of Russia returns the ball to Serena Willams of the USA during their semi final match of the WTA Qatar Ladies Open tennis tournament at the International Khalifa Tennis Complex in Doha, Qatar, 16 February 2013. EPA/STRINGER |

©Daily Tennis News Wire

Maria Sharapova’s candy line Sugarpova is expanding rapidly and according to its CEO Max Eisenbud, after their first year is complete in August, they will have sold about 1.2 million bags

Given that the candy is priced at $5 per bag, that comes out to $6 million in overall revenues. There are production and shipping costs as the candy is now available in the US, Europe, Australia and South Africa, but Sharapova and Eisenbud (who is also her agent at IMG) do expect to make a profit.

The Russian is the world’s most highly paid woman athlete who represents more than her fair share of brands, but this is turning out to be her most treasured venture. She and Eisenbud own it outright.

“From very first decision it’s been me,” Sharapova told Daily Tennis. “It doesn’t make me feel tired and I don’t feel obligated. I really love this project. I’m so excited when I receive emails and when I have to approve something, or when we are creative and are brainstorming about a future event or flavor.”

A bold and colorful pair of lips that characterize her represents each unique candy flavor in Sharapova’s fun-loving sides: chic, flirty, silly, splashy, cheeky, sassy, spooky, smitten, quirky and sporty.

She wanted to make sure that consumers see it as a special, high end product that’s worth spending more on than for other candies, but she had to convince potential distributors before they bought the product that it was viable.

“The first question many distributors asked is ‘Why that price and how can we sell it at that price’ and we’ve been able to prove we can sell at that price,” she said. “Quality was very important to me and the packaging is catchy and different to what’s usually on the market. I didn’t skimp on anything.”

Sharapova has put thousands of hours on the practice courts since she was a little girl and rarely spent time in a formal classroom. But she’s naturally intelligent and her mother also spent time making sure she was educated properly. So while she makes fun of her math skills, she didn’t mind looking at numbers.

“I go over many online sales reports and it’s interesting to see how different markets react to certain products, like why tennis gumballs do better in certain markets than in others, and how in different countries it takes different ingredients to get approval. Sometimes you have to change the ingredients a little and then the taste changes and then you have to decide whether you really want it in the package. International shipping is really expensive and not consumer friendly, so we have to get it to the right distributors to make it reasonably priced.”

Sharapova says that she’s already gotten a quick course in international economics. But she insists on keeping her vision of what her candy line should be paramount. When she visited the candy making factory for the first time and saw how it was being mass produced and that at times the same pieces of the candy looked dissimilar, she insisted that they looked the same. So she even changed the design of a few of the pieces to make sure it worked for both parties.

The world No. 3 has enough experience in the fashion world to know that it’s a positive team collaboration that makes products successful.

But she did have an epiphany about how many things go into running one’s own business

“She’s done a million photo shoots but she’s never had to pay for one,” Eisenbud said.

Sharapova laughed and then added that for the first time she had to be in a photo shoot while being the creative director.

“It was lot of pressure when making those types of decisions,” she said.

The 2012 Roland Garros champion may have a lot on her plate, but she has plenty of experience managing her off and on court duties and feels like she is striking the right balance.

“At end of day I want to be better tennis player and everything else secondary, but this so much fun and it’s really successful and I love being involved in every singles aspect,” she said.