Nick Bollettieri: A Marketing Genius?
I will state up front that I do not follow tennis. I follow tennis the way I follow golf and Nascar, in which the 'winners" are generally noted, but not necessarily my forte' in a discussion. The "winners" are simply filed away in the dark caverns of my brain, never again to see the light of day either in speech or in writing.
Enter Maria Sharapova.
The name has been liberally spilled all over the media lately, and I've been saying to myself, "Who is this?", as the name was new to me.
On a whim this afternoon, I decided to visit several of my favorite news sites to see what all of the fuss was about regarding this "Maria Sharapova".
I was amazed to find that Maria won the Grand Slam title at Wimbledon, defeating Serena Williams. Even though I do not follow tennis, the name "Serena Williams" still calls up the description of "a force to be reckoned with" - a virtual power house!
And then I saw Maria's pictures. The names "Sharapova" and "Williams" were instantly replaced with "Bollettieri".
Nick Bollettieri owns the "Bollettieri Tennis Academy" in Bradenton, FL. His academy has turned out the likes of Jim Courier, Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, Tommy Haas and Anna Kournikova. These individuals are not only tennis professionals, but their overall image has been quite pleasing for "the camera". Ms. Kournikova's tennis has been waning lately in lieu of her pursuit of a modeling career. Ms. Kournikova has appeared in GQ ("Gentlemen's Quarterly").
Not that there is anything wrong with anything mentioned above.
Nick Bollettieri, obviously, has an incredible niche. Not only is he able to turn out great professional tennis players, but he is able to turn out "the beautiful" people as well. He also has instructional books, audio tapes and videos, available from Amazon.com.
Admiration? For Mr. Bollettieri's business sense, yes there is defintiely a lot of admiration here. He definitely knows how to market that which he does best.
LLS
Author's note: I predict that Ms. Maria Sharapova will have a photo spread in a men's magazine within the next 10 months. Certainly NOT Playboy, as she is only 17, but definitely a non-nude, yet seductive spread in the not-to-distant future.
In addition, I did not intend this article to imply that those tennis professionals, not under the instruction of Nick Bollettieri, are "ugly". Good god, no! Serena is gorgeous!
(Author's note: I just thoguht I'd change the title of this post to read "Maria Sharapova".