Maria Sharapova could've made $20 million more but followed Tiger Woods method to balancing commitments says agent Max Eisenbud

Sports agent Max Eisenbud revealed that Maria Sharapova followed in the footsteps of Tiger Woods in designing her brand strategy. Eisenbud has been working with Sharapova since the Russian was 12 years old and has also advised other tennis players such as Li Na and more recently, Emma Raducanu.

Eisenbud recently appeared on the podcast "Served with Andy Roddick," where he detailed the responsibilities that high-profile athletes have regarding their commercial commitments. The agent asserted that golfer Tiger Woods dedicated only three weeks per year to sponsorship commitments:

"Mark Steinberg was a colleague of mine who worked on the 13th floor, I spent a lot of time with him to figure out how does Tiger do it, you know, Tiger had a lot of deals. The key is how do you maximize your earnings but still win,” he said.

“What he'd like to do is take weeks of the year to do his shoots, so what Tiger would do is take three weeks to do five shoots a week in those weeks," Eisenbud said.

According to the agent, Maria Sharapova applied similar rules to her schedule, allowing only 16 days per year for brands to photograph her without compromising her agenda, even at the expense of forgoing substantial sums of money:

"Basically, we figured out that we have sixteen days a year that would not interrupt her becoming a great tennis player. She could've made $20 million more if we added four or five days more, but we stayed true," Eisenbud added.

During the same episode, he recalled that Sharapova secured many sponsors after her incredible victory at Wimbledon in 2004 at the age of 17:

"I think you'll see after she [Maria Sharapova] won, she had crazy amount of deals but she kept winning. She won the [Year-end] championships that year [2004, she was Top 5, she won her second Grand Slam at the US Open [2006]," Eisenbud said.

"So, that strategy, credit to Yuri because he could've easily said, 'I want more!', credit to Maria buying in. So that 16 days, I brought to Emma and I brought Li Na," he added.