MS Dhoni becomes the richest cricketer in the world - report
Newly married Indian cricket captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mahendra-Singh-Dhoni-c73820 has signed the richest deal in the history of cricket. The Indian skipper signed a marketing deal worth Rs. 2 billion ($43 million) over a period of two years, a report claimed on Tuesday.
The 29-year-old Dhoni has signed a deal with Rhiti Sports which is run by a former Indian first class cricketer Arun Pandey. The deal is a joint venture between http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Arun-Pandey-c46119’s Rhiti Sports Management and an advertising agency Mindscapes.
General Manager of Rhiti Sports Sanjay Pandey confirmed about the deal on Tuesday while talking to a renowned cricketing news agency. He revealed that the deal was signed six or seven days ago. As per the deal, Rhiti will manage the endorsements of Dhoni, from digital rights to brand associations. The venture will handle his merchandise, patents and digital rights, corporate profile of the cricketer as well as his appearances on social networking websites.
“We have entered into a two-year contract with Dhoni for 2 billion rupees [$43 million]. We signed the contract a week back. From now onwards we will be handling Dhoni’s endorsement.” Rhiti General Manager Sanjay Pandey revealed while talking to the media.
Mindscapes was previously managing the endorsements of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/MS-Dhoni-c2028 and not the rest of his chattels which was inked last year. His previous deal with Gameplan sports ended in 2008.
The deal signed by MS Dhoni has become the richest in the history of cricket as it surpassed the $38 million deal over a period of three years by another Indian superstar Sachin Tendulkar. The batting superstar signed a three-year-deal worth Rs 1.8 billion in 2006 with another sports management firm Iconix.
The newly married captain currently endorses 22 leading national and international brands including Reebok, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Godrej-c60262, Hersheys, Airtel and PepsiCo.
Sources have revealed that other than Rhiti and Mindscapes, Dhoni has also been snapped by various other sports and advertising agencies such as Percept Group, IMG, the World Sport Group (WSG BCCI’s ex-media partner for IPL) and PMG (promoted by the former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar).
A sports magazine has reported that the Indian skipper charges up to $1.3 million (Rs 60 million) for an endorsement per year. The magazine also revealed that last year, Dhoni’s total income summed up to $10 million. Out of these $10 million, $8 million came from various endorsements of products and services. The figures made him the highest earning cricketer of the world. Agencies managing the endorsements of these rich players usually get a fraction of the endorsement money.
Indian players come at the top of the list of richest cricketers of last year. With Dhoni and Sachin leading the list, Yuvraj Singh and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Rahul-c83321 Dravid were ranked at the third and fourth place. Yuvraj took home $5.5 million last year while the total earnings of Dravid were reported to be at $5 million. English all-rounder Andrew Flintoff completes the list with annual earnings of $4 million at the fifth place. All the figures stated above include IPL salaries as well.
With India hosting the World Cup 2011, Dhoni’s brand value is expected to increase further as the sports and advertising agencies would try to take the advantage from the publicity of the 2011 World Cup to be held in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 these days and is facing injury problems particularly in the bowling department. Dhoni has shown his concern about the injuries to his bowlers specifically the seamers.
“It’s a bit of concern that we are missing fast bowlers regularly in important series,’’ Dhoni said. “We are missing bowlers because of injury rather than form.’’
Tags: