The tour has asked Sharapova and the other top players to take part in a WTA publicity shoot around the start of the Tier I Italian Open (May 12-19), which she claims could take up to five hours and they claim might only take two-and-a-half hours.
Regardless of how long the potential shoot might take, Sharapova has taken her case public, as the tour is threatening her with a $700,000 fine if she doesn't participate. This isn't a phantom fine, the kind where the tour dips into a player's year-end bonus pool; it's a real fine, which would be deducted from her upcoming prize money.
"The tour does not care what any of the players think, not just top players," Sharapova told TennisReporters.net from her home in LA. "The tour will say we have done all these amazing things that the players wanted, but trust me these things they wanted as well and financially benefited from, including this shoot. I want people to understand that I took this action because this is one in a long list of things that the tour has ignored the players. This is not about just one shoot. I just could not just sit back anymore."
The shoot is not just any shoot, it's part of the WTA's new massive global marketing campaign, which will include broadcast and print elements. The WTA, which signed three year, $42 million deal with Doha to host Sony Ericsson Championships November 4-9, is making a big push into the Middle East as well as in China, where they recently opened a new office. Top players Justine Henin, Serena Williams, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic are also scheduled to participate in the shoot. Serena has been less than thrilled in the past when asked to participate in lengthy promotions prior to big events such as Rome.
Sharapova said she was given less than two weeks notice about the shoot
"To ask me or any of the other players to do a long shoot like this is not right," Sharapova said. "Do you think the NBA would ask their top players to do a five-hour shoot the day before a playoff game? I understand the importance of supporting the tour and I want to do this, but the timing of the shoot and then for them to threaten me with a $700,000 fine is just not right. The tour is not thinking about the players."
Because she doesn't wear a WTA patch on her clothing, Sharapova's fine for not doing a tour promotional gig goes up $400,000 from the normal $300,000. Sharapova is also considering taking legal action against the WTA and may attempt to recruit other top players to boycott the shoot.
"We are trying to raise the notoriety of the players and the tour, and the players and their agents have complained in the past that we have not done enough to do so," said WTA spokesman Andrew Walker. "This is an opportunity to do it as we are putting millions of dollars into this worldwide campaign. It's important for women's tennis and, while we are sensitive to the demands of the tournament on our players, they've known about it for some time. It's in the rules."
Sharapova said that the WTA needs to be more realistic about his aims and when it decided what type of campaign it would launch, should have taken into account the fact that the players are athletes, not entertainers or models who perform such lengthy shoots for a living and don't have to go out on court the next day.
"The tour needed to challenge their agency to come up with creative that only needs 45-60 minutes of the players time, like the USTA does with their US Open Series ads," Sharapova said. "Or they could of been better prepared and did it at a tournament like Indian Wells where players arrive five to seven days early."
THE MORE RECOGNIZED TENNIS PLAYER
Sharapova's participation in the campaign is no doubt critical to the tour, as the No. 3 player is widely recognized as one of the popular women's athletes on the planet. She is said to earn about $25 million annually in off-court sponsorships and, with Serena and Ivanovic - who just finished ranked No. 23 in the FHM poll of the World's Sexiest Women - she's one of the tour's few internationally recognized faces. The tour wants to package its better-known players with its lesser-known up-and-comers in marketing campaigns in order to spread women's tennis' good word. The campaign is said to be ready to spend $5 million in 2008. Plus, the tour will have to spend massive funds in order to support selling the championships to Doha, which owns a regular tournament that has a poor attendance record and is a country that is consistently condemned by international organizations for trampling on women's rights. None of the top players are said to be enamored with the choice of Doha as the new locale of the championships, and the tour will face a treacherous task in trying to promote the event to the rest of the world, as Qatar is thousands of miles and many time zones away from places where tennis is popular.
"We are trying to build a cohesive message to help fans identify the players, explain what the Race to the Sony Ericsson Championships means and also to make fans aware that we will be playing the championships in Doha this year," Walker said.
The WTA is still hoping to convince Sharapova to do the shoot, and she may do so in order to avoid a fine, but if she's able to bring any other major players into her realm of opinion and with them threaten a serous boycott, the tour might have to ask its ad agencies to adjust their campaign on the fly.
"Hopefully she'll see the value of the campaign," Walker said. "We will be as flexible as possible to accommodate all the player schedules, but we are not making exceptions."
Sharapova was also was fined $125,000 for pulling out of next week Tier I tournament in Berlin and says that the tour is forcing her to send an injury excuse to avoid a larger fine, even though she said she told the tour that when she entered Tier I Charleston three weeks ago as a wildcard, that she would therefore not be able to play Berlin.
"One has nothing to do with the other," Walker said. "She set her schedule before this year and Maria entering Charleston doesn't help Berlin. It's an automatic fine."
Sharapova will likely be fined an additional $10,000 for the pullout. As a Gold Exempt player, Sharapova must commit to four Tier I appearances on top of Miami. Each appearance is worth $125,000 in her total bonus pool of $500,00, from where the Berlin money will be deducted from.