Indian athletes enter big money
league By Raju Bist
MUMBAI -
A quiet but welcome change is taking place in the world
of Indian sports. For years only the country's beloved
cricketers were raking in the dough. But now,
practitioners of other sports too are entering the
big-money league.
Consider the take-home
paychecks of some Indian athletes. Every sponsorship
deal that car racer Narain Karthikeyan - dubbed the
fastest Indian on wheels - signs is valued at about Rs30
million (US$657,000). Hockey maverick Dhanraj Pillay has
been signed on by celebrity managers Percept D'Mark. The
mercurial forward made about Rs700,000 last year from
endorsements, his share of the sponsorship of the Indian
team and his sports columns. Percept D'Mark has also
signed his teammates Gagan Ajit Singh and Jugraj Singh.
And then there's soccer player Baichung Bhutia, who
makes about Rs1.2 million every year. He is signed with
sports-management company 9 yards, which also represents
Wimbledon winner Leander Paes.
It's not just
mainstream athletes, either. Sportspeople dabbling in
lesser-known sports are also becoming a happy lot.
Shooters Jaspal Rana, Anjali Bhagwat and Samresh Jung
have collectively mopped up Rs35 million by way of
governmental rewards for winning at international
tournaments. Similarly, long jumper Anju B George has
become richer by Rs15 million.
Coincidentally,
this change in fortune comes at a time when the Indian
cricket team is going through a rough patch. Recently,
the Australian cricket team defeated India by 217 runs
in the first of a four-part Test series. The humiliating
defeat on home ground once again stirred up a debate
often heard in Indian living rooms and on street
corners: Do Indian cricketers deserve every penny of
their fat pay packets?
Those who make it to
become one of the first eleven on the Indian cricket
team are easily the highest-earning sportsmen in the
country today. What's more, point out critics, their
playing fees keep increasing with every season. But the
match earnings of the cricketers pale in comparison with
their earnings from hawking a wide variety of products.
Sachin Tendulkar, considered one of the finest batsmen
in the world, has renewed his five-year-contract with
sports management firm Worldtel for a whopping Rs1
billion. Lagging behind is current captain Sourav
Ganguly, who turns out endorsements worth Rs120 million
every year.
These earnings from advertising
contracts are the envy of India's sporting world. An
inclusion on the Indian team is a guarantee that you
will have advertisers knocking at your door, with age
and cricket experience playing absolutely no role. Thus
wicket keeper Prathiv Patel is a familiar face on the
television screen, even though he is just nudging 18
years of age. Debutant Irfan Pathan was flooded with
advertising offers after bowling just one season for the
Indian cricket team. Soccer player Bhutia was speaking
for all other sportspersons when he said, "It is unfair
that cricketers get maximum money in this country. Other
sportspersons have also dedicated themselves to the game
and the country. I think the media [are] to be blamed
for this."
Perhaps Bhutia would have been better
off if the association controlling soccer in India had
been as proactive as the Board for Cricket Control in
India (BCCI), the governing body that runs the game in
the country. Definitely the richest cricket body in the
world and one of the richest sports governing bodies in
the world, the BCCI has over the years managed to sign
lucrative deals with sponsors, TV stations and
cricket-playing venues. A substantial amount of the
BCCI's profits is passed on to cricketers playing at
both the international and domestic levels.
It
is for this reason that compared with cricketers, what
other sportsmen earn is peanuts. However, optimism is
rising. "The increasing fees in other sports is at least
a step in the right direction," says Ashutosh Deshpande,
a Mumbai-based collegian specializing in philosophy.
"Why should a footballer [soccer player] in India be
paid less when he plays the most popular game in the
world?"
The answer to that question lies in the
frenzied attraction that Indian spectators have toward
cricket. It is said that apart from cinema, the average
Indian has only one other passion in life: cricket. This
is the only country where giant stadiums are often full
for Test matches - on all five days. Telecasts of
international Test matches, as well as one-day matches,
if India is a participant, mean poor attendance in
offices and schools.
Now even women, who had
long eschewed the game, are turning out to be keen
followers. Aware of this changing demography, one Indian
sports channel has recruited a film and TV actress as a
full-time cricket anchor. Cricket purists guffawed that
viewers were more impressed by her plunging neckline
than her knowledge of the game. But other channels
followed suit and announced their own - though more
suitably attired - female anchors. As expected,
advertisers followed suit.
Aware of this
unfailing attraction of advertisers for the men in
white, TV companies are willing to gamble on their
future cash flows in order to seize a piece of the
action. When BCCI recently announced that the
cricket-telecast rights for the next five years were up
for grabs, Zee network, which does not even have a
sports channel, bid a mind-boggling $308 million. But
ESPN Star Sports cried foul, objecting that Zee did not
have the necessary experience to relay sports events.
Later, Indian government-controlled Prasar Bharati too
joined the legal fray.
The flip side to this mad
rush for cricketing icons is that a slight tarnishing of
their celebrityhood immediately translates into an
erosion in the value of the brand they are endorsing. A
troubled marriage, off-pitch tantrums and an inability
to handle overnight success began affecting the stroke
plays of Vinod Kambli, Tendulkar's childhood friend.
This led to his being dropped from the Indian cricket
team and Pepsi canceling a lucrative contract.
Similarly, sponsors dropped captain Mohammed Azharuddin
and swashbuckling batsman Ajay Jadeja after their names
figured in a bribery scandal.
Cricketers
therefore make very good brand ambassadors, but they are
not always able to project a flawless brand image. It is
this realization that is drawing agencies and
advertisers to games other than cricket. However, there
are other factors at play too. "Endorsements by
cricketers is reaching a saturation point," says a New
Delhi-based advertiser. "After a certain level, this
takes away from your brand rather than add to it." A
Mumbai-based advertiser even questions the efficacy of
using the biggest brand of them all, Sachin Tendulkar,
in pushing your product. "He endorses a health drink one
[day], a cola drink the next and a motorcycle on the
third day. So how will a viewer associate any one
particular product with the cricketing superstar?"
This growing interest in sports other than
cricket is also tied to Indians' successes in some of
these sports, especially at the international level.
Golfers Arjun Atwal, Jyoti Randhawa, Jeev Milkha and
Gaurav Ghei have all been earning big money on the
international stage.
Atwal, the richest Asian
golfer at present, is believed to have earned upwards of
$1 million from golf, including the $150,000 picked up
from the Singapore Open in February 2002. Randhawa
placed first in the Suntory Open and pocketed $171,000
and he was runner-up in the BMW Open and won $167,000
for his efforts. Even when he finished sixth in the
Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews he walked home
with $170,000.
For Indian athletes other than
cricketers, decent money appears here to stay. Once
sponsors become a little more liberal with their purse
strings, this could turn into big money.
Raju Bist is a Mumbai-based freelance
journalist. He can be contacted atinwo@rediffmail.com.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
