Part of the fantasy aspect of The L Word was the trajectory women’s circuit tennis player Dana took after she came out. She’d always been advised by her agent that revealing her sexuality would be a disaster for her endorsements. But later her engagement to a pr flack led to a bizarre photo shoot tie in with a fashion mag celebrating her same sex wedding. In the narrative of The L Word, Dana’s professional life only kept getting better – her lesbian celebrity endured after her tennis career came to a halt.
Back in the reality based community, life is different for world #1 Amelie Mauresmo.
Amelie Mauresmo doesn’t bounce around the court in a low-cut dress like Maria Sharapova or design her own outfits like Serena Williams. The world’s top-ranked women’s tennis player just wins.
Sharapova has the highest earnings of any woman in sport, though as the article acerbically observes, unlike Kournikova, she wins.
But it seems that being an out lesbian is not the only reason why Mauresmo’s earnings are dwarfed by those of her peers. Sport is not just about winning, but about celebrity and personality. And Mauresmo, who has one of the least sexualised images on the circuit, apparently needs to unlock hers. Being #1 in the world isn’t enough.
It’s more than just her sexuality that may be keeping sponsors away, said Dean Bonham of the Bonham Group, a Denver sports marketing firm. He said Mauresmo could command up to $10 million a year if she revealed a charismatic personality and compelling story to the public.
Mauresmo
Sharapova
I wonder if it occurs to commentators that maybe she doesn’t care to ‘play the game’ just so she can hawk the latest watch off court.
While sport is (relatively) a level playing field (unless you come from an impoverished family or continent), the big bad world of celebrity endorsements and magazine photo spreads actually isn’t. Level that is.
IF she wanted to compromise herself and play that modelling/corporate game, a few juicy shots, with a bit of ambiguity, a celebrity cause or two would gain her some attention, if thats what she was seeking.
Personally measuring peoples worth or talent on income is counterproductive.
Just look at Tom Cruise and his carefully constructed persona last decade, and the place he’s found himself in now that he wants to ‘be true to himself and his religion’ or whatever. The studio’s dont want authenticity they want money and control.
Tom Cruise may be a tosser, but its a salutory reminder that reality just isn’t renumerated like fantasy.
Indeed. And yet it’s taken for granted in these kinds of reports that of course she and everyone else is greedy for as much money as they can possibly get their paws on, and will do any fool thing to get it. Maybe Mauresmo actually has such a charismatic personality, stemming from such highly developed inner resources, that she knows she can get by very happily with what she earns on the circuit. (That of course being peanuts — not.)
Besides, if the sponsors had any brains they’d know a real French accent will sell nearly as many watches as a petulant-featured, grunting blonde.
But at the end of the day, isn’t it the case that she’s a tennis player? Nobody stops her from playing (or winning) tennis because of her image or sexuality. The other stuff –modeling, endorsements, what-have-you– is precisely that: other stuff.
The market for celebrity is just different in nature from the market for excellence in sports. If, for some lucky people, the two sets intersect (or can be made by clever PR people to intersect), well that’s just jim dandy for them, I reckon; but why should we assume that it’s the norm, or the ideal, –or even the goal, of excellence?
Yeah, its drawing a fairly long bow to blame Mauresmo’s lack of “celebrity” on her sexuality.
If couldn’t care less whether she’s in the woman’s mags or not, doesn’t care about becoming a squillionaire, and just wants to win tennis games, then more power to her.
Mind you, I can’t deny both Sharapova and Kournikova are great eye candy.
DD has it in one.
Sharps and Anna are grest lookers. MM on the other hand is not and society does reward great lookers.
It just aint fair!
YOu see, the thing is, if we are just talking looks and sex appeal I think MM wins. She projects confidence and skill and yes, sexiness. She does when she plays as well. I think what Sharapova and Kournikova project is passivity. And blondeness.
What sophie said. I was going to say what Mauresmo represents is the sensuality of athleticism. Tennis is a sport after all.
I’m going to admit something horrible, I saw her in a women’s magazine and I said to my housemate, “cripes, look at her masculine face” to which my housemate, “cripes, she needs a new do to soften her face”.
I don’t think I think about such things in the real world, but I want my celebs to be crackers (in the same way that Homer Simpson likes his “homosexuals flaming”. Let’s face it, as a woman who is not immune from perving at other women, I’d rather gawk at the girls from The L Word than a girl who looks like a bloke. Mind you, I might prefer the “bloke” for her personality and whatever else in a real relationship situation.
Anyway, I better leave it at that.
Agree with Kim, etc. etc. Publicity and sponsorship are unequal, sexist and internally inconsistent. Mauresmo is by far one of the best players on the women’s circuit, as are Clijsters, Henin-Hardenne and Davenport, whose earnings, I imagine, are also less than Sharapova’s (who, it has to be said, is very very very good).
Still, for some reason my sympathy isn’t flowing hugely for top-of-the-hierarchy pro tennis players. If they want to be free from the terrible price of fame, extremely large tournament prizes, and even from the moderately massive sponsorship of the middle-level pro, they should do what the rest of us do—get real jobs.
Unfortunately if you’re a sheila and look like a bloke, you aren’t going to appeal to blokes or most sheilas. Now if she was a bloke who looked like a sheila she could be quite a marketable pianist, artist, rock star, hairdresser or chef, but that’s not the fault of we blokes but you sheilas.
Let’s see, bottom line:
“PR managers believe that people who are interested buying in what female tennis players are paid to endorse adhere to retrogressive attitudes to female sexuality.”
These PR managers are probably correct about the punters’ prejudices.
Folks who don’t like these PR strategies are probably intelligent enough to boycott the products spruiked by the hetero dolls.
There are a lot more interesting folks around than the wallies who are influenced in their consumption choices by tennis players’ paid endorsements.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, who wants to join a club that boasts members like that?
I’d also point out that she’s hardly the first winning but relatively unglamorous female tennis player to earn less money than her inferior but more glamorous colleagues.
Exhibit A: Lindsay Davenport.
In any case, both Mauresmo and Davenport have earned more than enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, and considerable respect amongst actual knowledgeable tennis fans for their achievements, which haven’t come easy in either case (Davenport had to battle for fitness early in her career, and Mauresmo’s nerves seemed destined to deny her major titles). I don’t think they’ve done too badly out of the whole professional tennis caper.
Exhibit B: Monica Seles
There is not, nor will there ever be any connection between sex and sport. This does not hold true for PR and advertising under the eternal adage of ’sex sells’. The choice is Ms Mauresmo’s alone – earnings from excelling at the tougher, physical activity of a world class tennis athlete, or additional earnings from prostituting her sexuality in endorsements. I admire her more for taking the higher ground.
Martina Navratilova has made an estimated USD 20 million during her career – much of which was conducted in much less benign times than the present. As long as Mauresmo keeps winning and invests wisely there’s no reason for her to suffer any sexuality-related earnings loss.
Ian Thorpe with his pearls, his metrosexual undie range and his poorly-advised hairdo’s is hardly your traditional testosterone-laden, sports god mesomorph but he seems to be doing OK.
Just further illustrates that professional sport in these days is just another form of entertainment. And the players who get the most endorsements are not those who play the game the best – as measured by winning – but those who are the best entertainers in terms of who likes to look at them, read about them, etc etc. This is one reason why Kournikova made so much, even though she rarely, if ever, won anything. Then, of course, it drops into a big vicious spiral where the players that attract the most attention – for whatever reason – get even more attention and become even more attractive to marketers and PR flacks, and thus get more sponsorship, and even more attention – and all the while the ‘game’ they play becomes increasingly irrelevant. Like all forms of entertainment, it matters not what actually happens as long as it puts bums on seats, viewers in front of the box, and readers picking up the glossy gossip rags. It further illustrates that it is no longer about games, winning and losing and play. Let’s face it, anyone who makes millions a year doing whatever pro sports players do is not at play when they are doing what they do, they are at work…
Cheers..
Sport is not the same thing as celebrity. Sharapova would probably do pretty well as a model/celebrity even if she’d never picked up a tennis racket in her life. Yet she trains and trains and trains and wins tournaments.
Give her some fucking credit for not taking the easy road.
Mauresmo is great at tennis, and an impressive athlete, but she just ain’t much to look at. Who can honestly say that if they were flogging evening gowns and had these two lasses to choose between, they’d go for the shemale?
Anyone?
Observa, that’s hilarious and true.
We ladies love a luvvie in a skirt. I saw a play not long ago called I Am My Own Wife” about a trannie living through the Cold War and WWII. Artistic masterpiece, and how subversive. If it had been a woman dressed in pants and a shirt pretending to be a bloke, it’d be less interesting. I’d think, “Why do you want to be a bloke, you tool of the patriarchy?”
I hate to say it, but blokes present themselves in boring ways, anyway.
FDB:
Never said it was easy. And it ain’t. The chances of getting to the top in sport – or the movies, or rock’n'roll are, let’s face it, pretty small. Infinitesmially small, despite all the crappy US movies that just say ‘follow your dream kid, and you’ll make it in the end. But the truth is that for every 5,000 kids that start out in a garage or on a local ashphelt court or down the local oval with rock dreams or the vision of playing at Wimbeldon or Lords, there might be 1 that makes it. Maybe. But my point is that for those that do make it, they make it big, because or despite what they do as ‘players’. Increasingly, what they actually do on the court, pitch, or arena is irrelevant to their ’success’ as celebrities and makers of money. Here is an example I think that illustrates this phenomenon. Does anyone remember ‘Eddie the Eagle’? Some pommie guy who went to the winter Olympics, and became famous – and a celebrity with attached endorsements for lager etc etc not because he was ny good, but because he was sooo f*&%ing hopeless. Which was at that ski ramp jump thing. Whatever. Maybe sport is not the same as straight out celebrity. But they are fast approaching the point where I can’t tell the difference much anymore…
Cheers….
Mick Strummer
BTW. I never mentioned Sharapova – who I think has more than a modicum of talent with a tennis racket….And her record shows it. But as for Mauresmo? She probably needs a new agent/manager…
PS. I personally think Mauresmo looks pretty impressive. Does it for me, anyway. But the trouble is that those people who flog stuff don’t think that. And part of the reason they think she don’t look good is because she is a dyke…. I can just imagine creative types at ad agencies tellingthemselves that it is just too difficult to try and have some big physically intimidating Lesbian selling whatever… especially when there are women like Kournikova and Sharapova willing to take their clothes off for tasteful publications like FHM and Ralph…
I wasn’t really responding to you, Mick – just ranting really.
And yes, she (AM) is by no means ugly. Impressive is a good word. But I doubt her lesbianity has much to do with her (un)marketability. I reckon if Sharap- and Kournikova went muff-diving their price tag would go up considerably, and no amount of cock is going to make Mauresmo into a clothes-horse.
Sorry, I’m in a strange mood today.
Mauresmo’s norks are pretty phwoar but, eh… And she’s almost perpetually on high beam during her matches.
(Just thought the cultural/marketing analysis needed to be brought back to earth a bit.)
FDB, muff-diving has been accepted as a sport at the next Olympics.
Just do it safely, girls.
Mauresmo should have a natural market advantage in the promotion of muffs.
Why aren’t muff ad account execs beating a path to her door?
Do you have to be pretty to promote muffs?
I think we should all use the term muff-diving loudly and often while we can, in light of the depilationary trend often discussed here.
Any thoughts on a bare-lipped equivalent for these troubling times?
Really? I hadn’t noticed. And I might not have put it quite that way myself. Never mind. Well, perhaps they are. Her ‘norks’, that is. How does the expression go? “Pretty phwoar”. And maybe they are on ‘high beam’, as that oh so elegant expression – well – expresses it. Well there you go. But so what? Maybe it just illustrates something about the relationship between sport and arousal then…. Who knows…?
Cheers…
PS. FDB, I’m with you. The world should be full of more muff diving in this age of the Brazilian. Never understood the logic behind being all grown up, and then removing so much of the hair that you look like you ain’t…
First time I’ve heard that one.
Just sayin…
In her post match interview at Rod Laver, after winning her 1st grand slam in Jan, her wine, vineyard and cellars were a major theme…possibly she has better things to do than ponce around in designer clobber (maybe not), and she has only started winning majors this year…
Stephie Graff – best player for like 10 years, wasn’t the face of Revlon and Serena Williams was never likely to be in a run off for Chanel with Nic.
“her lesbianity” is probably like his “gayinity” or something.
Mick Strummer, you are a champ. That whole shave thing really reduces the female bits to an infantile state. I would’ve thought most men would be uncomfortable with it. Besides the hair is there for a reason.
sex sells and sharapova has it dripping from her…according to most people.
but personally i think momo is HOT…she did an AMAZING photo shoot in Paris Match magazine in dec 05 if any of you want to look it up.
it’s a sad reflection of society that people are paid for sex appeal rather than pure talent but let’s not forget momo are not really starving, she already has millions and could easily make millions more if she invests her earnings wisely…she is also the highest paid female athlete in France and the second most popular sportsperson (after zidane) in France.