When she was a child, Russian-born tennis star Maria Sharapova always received a candy bar or a lollipop after a good practice. Now the 25-year-old champion hopes to turn her sweet tooth into a profitable business. She’s spent $500,000 to set up Sugarpova, a candy brand featuring brightly colored gummies with playfully named flavors such as Smitten Sour, Quirky, and Sporty. She hopes to more than double her money in the first year and may expand into other products later, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.
The gummy candy was first marketed in the U.S. in August, shipping 250,000 bags in the first three months, according to Max Eisenbud, Sharapova’s agent at IMG Tennis. It was just launched in Melbourne to coincide with her appearance in this month’s Australian Open. Eisenbud forecasts sales of 1 million bags in the first year alone as distribution expands to the U.K., Japan, Canada, Russia, India, and China. Sharapova, who makes a profit of as much as $1.10 per bag, says she’s surprised by the strong start. “We don’t really have a big budget at all for marketing and advertisement,” says the four-time Grand Slam tournament winner, who owns 100 percent of the company. “That hasn’t been our main goal, because I am the face of the project, and I do travel around the world, and people ask me about it.”
Sharapova shot to global fame and became the world’s best-paid female athlete after she won Wimbledon in 2004 at age 17. Titles at the U.S. Open and the Australian Open followed in 2006 and 2008. Her annual earnings from prize money and endorsements for Nike (NKE), Samsung Electronics, Tiffany (TIF), and other companies are estimated at close to $28 million, according to Forbes and Eisenbud.