What it's like to launch a tennis brand
Meet Richsport founders Nicole Dunn and Sarah Koudouzian
Brand collaborations happen all the time in professional sport, but when Danielle Collins decided to link up with a start-up called Richsport back in March, I was intrigued.
“PLAY TENNIS, CASH CHECKS, REPEAT”, read the slogan on the neon orange t-shirt. It was inspired by Collins telling the booing crowd at the Australian Open that she would be taking home a “big, fat pay check”, regardless of what they thought of her.
With one shirt, Richsport showed that it shared Collins’s unapologetic attitude and also had the confidence to do something different.
Tennis Core has been the overarching trend dominating the sport in fashion terms in recent years. It’s rooted in “old money”, preppy dressing and classic country club styles. Think polos, pleats, all whites, dark greens and navy.
But Richsport launched last year in Miami and Los Angeles with an aim to disrupt that trend and try to serve a less traditional fan and player. They said they were moving “against the rigidity of tennis”. Their collection of t-shirts carried bold slogans like Collins’s collab, or their original “busy. watching women’s tennis” merchandise.
They also have tennis accessories like racket dampeners, grip tape and grip bands with empowering messaging on them.
All of it is drenched in their signature neon colour scheme.
“It’s not about material wealth,” their founding statement said, “but about feeling enriched by the community and the joy of tennis.” They donate products every single month to non-profits helping underserved communities make tennis more accessible for all, and donate 1% of proceeds too.
I caught up with founders and best friends Nicole Dunn and Sarah Koudouzian, who told me about the brand’s origin story and their hopes for their business.
I’m thinking of making this a regular feature, centred around female founders and creators in the tennis/sport space. If you enjoyed this interview or want to shout out any other women whose work I should be following, please let me know in the chat/comments!
What made you want to launch a tennis brand?
NICOLE: We both have tennis backgrounds. Sarah, she almost became pro (Koudouzian was one of the top 50 ranked juniors in the US). I kind of kept to recreational, playing around like local parks and stuff. And Sarah and I, we both felt a need to change things up in the tennis industry. We're 1980s children. We wanted the cool stuff back in the day but never got a chance. We wanted to bring fun products to the tennis world. Around 2021 we saw a surge in tennis, but it was more country club [style]. That’s not what we know, we’re not about that, so we wanted to bring a different perspective to tennis.
SARAH: We’re park kids. We do enjoy country clubs, don’t get us wrong, but we wanted to create something that hasn’t been done in tennis, incorporating our favourite colour growing up — we’ve known each other since the eighth grade. We both love bright colours and hadn’t really seen orange done in tennis. It’s something we’ve been running with. We didn’t really see anything marketed towards us, so we wanted to come in and paint the courts orange I guess.
NICOLE: We also wanted to represent, as two minority women founders — I’m Chinese on my dad’s side, and on my mum’s side we’re Singaporean.
SARAH: And I’m Lebanese-Armenian. I was born in Lebanon and we moved out here as refugees when I was two. Growing up I never saw any female Armenian tennis players, let alone Middle Eastern. Now you’ve got Ons Jabeur and Elina Avanesyan, but growing up it was Andre Agassi. I wanted to be the female Agassi. It was really important for Nicole and I to try to incorporate our heritage if we can.
Where did the name Richsport come from?
SARAH: The first thing that came out of my mouth after Nicole told me to just describe tennis, I said ‘rich sport’. Growing up at the public school that we went to, when I said I had to leave to go compete they would make fun of me and say, ‘Oh you’re going to go play that rich sport’. It was an insult in a way, which I associated with it being a nerdy sport. And from there, we thought why don’t we redefine what it means to be ‘rich’, which is to feel rich. So we played around with that.
Sarah, as a junior, you had aspirations to go pro before injuries changed your direction. What was your experience of that world like?
SARAH: It was definitely very tough, very lonely, you become very critical of yourself. You are the only person on that court, so if you lost, you were 100% to blame in your head. Coming up with a very strict Middle Eastern dad who was also my coach and did not know the boundaries of fatherhood and coaching, that always came into play into the home and into my personal life. I only knew myself as a tennis player - any achievement or mistake I made was always through this sport. When I lost the sport, I felt like I lost myself completely. That experience of the very difficult, lonely junior world — especially when you're playing singles — definitely played a part in the fun things we wanted to create in Richsport. Utilising Nicole’s experience on the recreational side of things, where she got to keep tennis fun, compared to me — I never got to keep it fun — really helped with the designs and the things we wanted to do with the company.
The accessories you’ve created have slogans like ‘breathe’, ‘chill’, ‘focus’ printed on them. These mantras seem very fitting to your experience, but also speak to what a lot of professional tennis players describe the sport as: very individual, mentally challenging and lonely on the court. Was that intentional?
SARAH: When I came back to tennis, after taking a 10-year hiatus, I wanted to get into the mental side of the sport. I wanted to really understand what happened to me, there was a lot to unpack there. So working with a sports psychologist, and learning those kinds of things, we were able to develop the Aura Gummies and the Mantra Grip Bands. Because I will tell you I was not positive on the court or very nice to myself on the court. I didn’t say any of those things to myself — breathe, chill, or focus. But talking to my sports psychologist they said maybe switching things up, saying these things in your mind can remind you to just let go, stay in the here and now, and have fun. You’ll play way better. It’s helped me. We both have our favourites, and that’s why the Gummies are my favourite product. The colours we chose were specific, as they trigger a certain mood booster in your head. Looking at happy bright colours will automatically help you to play happy.
Have you rekindled that joy in playing now?
SARAH: For sure, I feel like back then I was considered a top athlete and now I feel like I’m a better athlete than I ever was in my prime because I’m actually having fun. It’s a lot to do with Richsport, with partnering with my best friend, so no matter what happens on the court — if I double fault, if I do a crazy toss — I’m still going to have fun. I wish I could have done that growing up as a competitive player.
The collaboration with Danielle Collins put your brand on the map. Her personal story matches up with Richsport’s story in a way: she wasn’t a country club girl, she was gutsy and worked her way through tennis to reach the top of the sport, becoming a Grand Slam finalist and top 10 player. That, alongside her personality and how she presents herself on court, makes the collaboration a perfect match. How did it all come about?
SARAH: She was someone we have talked about before, we brainstormed about how we're going to get her attention last year, when she had talked about 2024 being her potential retirement year. The timing just didn’t work out, but fast forward to Australian Open this year, and what happened on court for Danielle. A few days later, she ends up DMing me [on Instagram], telling us how much she loved our brand, and that she's interested in a merch line, and if possibly we could do it together. It came about very organically, naturally, and the collaborative meetings between the three of us have been so much fun. It just flowed. I think she loved what we were doing.
NICOLE: Danielle was really fun to work with. It resonated with her style and our styles, so it was a breeze.
Your “busy watching women’s tennis” slogan has been a hit and saw you featured on the Tennis Channel. Why did you want to hone in on women’s tennis specifically?
NICOLE: Women’s tennis doesn’t get enough shine. It needs more attention. In any sport, women should be paid equal, so that goes back to the ‘cash checks’ with Danielle. That’s why the collab was so big, because it represented so many things in sport and women’s sports.
SARAH: It’s as simple as we want it to get more light and more shine. After all these years it still doesn’t get the proper recognition that we feel it deserves. And so we’re hoping by making statement pieces and having it around powerful women in tennis in particular, they’ll start to get the recognition they deserve.
Was the rise in women's sport, particularly in the NWSL and WNBA, including the branding and the merchandise behind it, an inspiration to you too?
SARAH: Definitely, we saw the noise they were making and we absolutely loved it. But when we created everything, Nicole and I really hone in on our own imaginations. We want to keep it Richsport style and not be too influenced by anything.
NICOLE: It’s a blend of our personalities for sure. But seeing all that’s happening in women’s sports obviously elevated our want to create that line on our t-shirt.
What are the future plans?
NICOLE: More fun collabs. We’re not allowed to talk about it! But we’re having so much fun with the brand we’re collaborating with and you’ll hear more later this year and next.
SARAH: One thing we can talk about is we’re also very into nails, so we’re teaming up with a nail salon in LA. We’re going to do a Richsport nails pop-up, we’re designing press ons. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that done in tennis. We’ll also be nationwide (US) June 3 in a particular store. As for worldwide deliveries, we’re working on it!
Recommendations
It’s the Uefa women’s Champions League final on Saturday. Arsenal v Barcelona live from Lisbon. Who have you got? It will be broadcast by DAZN and TNT Sports.
Roland Garros begins on Sunday. I unfortunately won’t be in Paris this year, but will be watching from afar. It’s available on TNT Sports, and I’d recommend reading these Substacks to keep up.
Lastly, this piece by Jonathan Wilson, on the tears shed for football teams at the weekend — from the FA Cup final to Goodison Park — was a highlight from my reading this week.
Thanks!
Molly x
This was such a good read. Would love to hear about the founder of Spence
Hi Molly. Are you at The Queen’s Club during the HSBC Championships, specifically Wednesday 11th of June? Might have something of interest.