We hear news like MS Dhoni earns Rs 450 crore a year, Sachin endorses a brand for Rs 5 crore, Gautam Ghambir got Rs 11.04 crore in IPL4 auction. Makes one wonder Just How much does a cricketer earn? How much IPL pays cricketers?What about the endorsements and his retirement? Through this article we have tried to explore these questions. Are Indian players the world’s best-paid cricketers? And where does cricket stand among other sports in terms of player remuneration?

BCCI Fee for Cricketers

Committee of Administrators (CoA), appointed by Supreme Court of India, on 7 Mar 2018 announced Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Annual Player Contracts for the period from October 2017 to September 2018. BCCI this time has introduced a new category A+ for Indian Men’s team and a category C has been also introduced for Team India Women. To insulate the player compensation, the CoA has sanctioned the creation of a ‘Players Revenue/Compensation Equalisation Fund’ (PR/CEF) to which the BCCI will contribute approximately Rs125 crore per annum from its surplus

As per the new structure, players from the men’s cricket team have been divided into four categories – Grade A+, Grade A, Grade B and Grade C. Veteran Yuvraj Singh and young Rishabh Pant have been omitted from the last list

• Grade A +  will receive Rs 7 crore annually includes 5 players:  Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah
• Grade A  will receive Rs 5 crore annually includes 7  players Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara,Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni, Wridhhiman Saha
• Grade B will receive Rs 3 crore annually includes 7  players KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Hardik Pandya,Ishant Sharma, Dinesh Karthik
• Grade C will receive Rs 1 crore annually includes 7  players Kedar Jadhav, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel,Karun Nair, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel, Jayant Yadav

Asked about Dhoni being kept out of the top bracket, a senior BCCI official said “It’s a simple logic that selectors have applied. Play more and get paid more. The five in question are indispensable in all three formats right now. They deserved to be paid more. Also Ravi Shastri, Kohli and Dhoni have been taken into confidence.”

Explaining the logic behind picking category A players, the official said, “The second group comprises players who are certainties in at least one format like Saha and Pujara. They are in second group because of their dependability in at least one format. Dhoni has retired and Ashwin, Jadeja are no longer automatic selections in limited overs. They are as of now not in the WC scheme. So in second category,” the official added.

There was some good news for domestic cricketers as first XI players will now get Rs 35,000 per day in a four-day game making their match fees rocket from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1.40 lakh per match. Add to it the TV rights money will make their per match fee go up to Rs 3 lakh per match.

BCCI Fee for Cricketers before Oct 2017

The BCCI awards central contracts to its players graded according to the importance of the player.  Players’ salaries in various grades called Contract Grade revised in Nov 2010. From Annual report of BCCI of 2015-16  are as follows :

Grade	Retainership Fees p.a	Players
A	Rs 1 crore	M S DHONI 2 VIRAT KOHLI 3 R ASHWIN 4 AJINKYA RAHANE
B	Rs 50 Lakh	5 SURESH RAINA 6 AMBATI RAYUDU 7 ROHIT SHARMA 8 MURALI VIJAY 9 SHIKHAR DHAWAN 10 BHUVNESHWAR KUMAR 11 UMESH YADAV 12 ISHANT SHARMA 13 CHETESHWAR PUJARA 14 MOHAMMAD SHAMI
C	Rs 25 Lakh	15 AMIT MISHRA 16 AXAR PATEL 17 STUART BINNY 18 WRIDDHIMAN SAHA 19 MOHIT SHARMA 20 VARUN AARON 21 KARN SHARMA 22 RAVINDRA JADEJA 23 K L RAHUL 24 DHAWAL KULKARNI 25 HARBHAJAN SINGH 26 S ARVIND Following players were added in Grade ‘C’ as they represented India in International Cricket during 2015-16 season 27 YUVRAJ SINGH 28 ASHISH NEHRA 29 HARDIK PANDYA 30 JASPRIT BUMRAH 31 BARINDER SRAN 32 RISHI DHAWAN 33 GURKEERAT SINGH MANN 34 YUZVENDRA CHAHAL 35 MANDEEP SINGH.

Cricketers fees of various countries

Steven Smith, the Australia captain, will earn US$1.469 million this year, while his Zimbabwean counterpart Graeme Cremer stands to earn $86,000. The top Indian earners in international cricket are Virat Kohli, the captain, who pulled in approximately $1 million this year, and coach Ravi Shastri, whose annual salary of $1.17 million is comparable to that of any of the game’s top players. Ref: Who gets paid what in cricket

Fees of Indian Women Cricket Players

India made its Test debut in 1976, against the West Indies, and its One Day International (ODI) debut at the 1978 World Cup, which it hosted. The team has made the World Cup final on two occasions, losing to Australia by 98 runs in 2005, and losing to England by 9 runs in 2017. India has made the semi-finals on three other occasions, in 1997, 2000, and 2009. India has also made the semi-finals of the World Twenty20 on two occasions (2009 and 2010), but is yet to progress any further in the tournament.

The BCCI awarded contracts to women cricketers for the first time in the 2015-16 fiscal year. 19 women cricketers have been given contracts across three categories. The women’s team has been divided into three grades where,

• the Grade A ones will be getting Rs 50 lakh : Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana
• the ones in Grade B will be paid Rs 30 lakh
• the ones in Grade C will be handed Rs 10 lakh each.

Name	Batting style	Bowling style	Domestic team	Zone	Grade	Forms
Test and ODI Captain
Mithali Raj	Right-handed	Right-arm leg break	Railways	Central	A	Test, ODI, T20I
T20I Captain
Harmanpreet Kaur	Right-handed	Right-arm medium fast	Railways	North	A	ODI, T20I
Batswomen
Thirush Kamini	Left-handed	Leg break	Railways	Central	–	T20I
Veda Krishnamurthy	Right-handed	Right-arm leg break	Karnataka	South	B	ODI, T20I
Smriti Mandhana	Left-handed	Right-arm medium	Maharashtra	West	A	ODI, T20I
Mona Meshram	Right-handed	Right-arm medium			C	ODI, T20I
Poonam Raut	Right-handed	Right-arm offbreak	Railways	Central	C	ODI, T20I
Vellaswamy Vanitha	Right-handed	Right-arm offbreak	Karnataka	South	–	ODI, T20I
Latika Kumari	Right-handed	Right-arm offbreak	Delhi	North	–	T20I
Jemimah Rodrigues	Right-handed	Right-arm offbreak	Delhi	North	C	ODI, T20I
Wicket-keeper
Sushma Verma	Right-handed	n/a	Himachal Pradesh	North	C	ODI, T20I
Ravi Kalpana	Right-handed	n/a	Andhra	South	–	ODI, T20I
Nuzhat Parveen	Right-handed	n/a	Railways	Central	C	ODI, T20I
Taniya Bhatia	Right-handed	n/a	Punjab	North	C	ODI, T20I
All-rounders
Jhulan Goswami	Right-handed	Right-arm medium fast	Bengal	East	A	Test, ODI, T20I
Shikha Pandey	Right-handed	Right-arm medium fast	Goa	South	B	ODI, T20I
Deepti Sharma	Left-handed	Right-arm off spin	Uttar Pradesh	North	B	ODI, T20I
Anuja Patil	Right-handed	Right-arm off spin	Maharashtra	West	C	ODI, T20I
Bowlers
Ekta Bisht	Right-handed	Slow left-arm orthodox	Railways	Central	B	ODI, T20I
Rajeshwari Gayakwad	Right-handed	Slow left-arm orthodox	Railways	Central	B	ODI, T20I
Mansi Joshi	Right-handed	Right-arm medium-fast			C	ODI, T20I
Sneh Rana	Right-handed	Right-arm offbreak	Punjab	North	–	ODI, T20I
Pooja Vastrakar	Right-handed	Right-arm medium	Railways	Central	C	T20I
Poonam Yadav	Right-handed	Right-arm legbreak			C	ODI, T20I
Radha Yadav	Right-handed	Right-arm leg break	Railways	North	–	T20I

Fees of Women Crikecters in 2015-16

GRADE-A ( RS. 15 LAKH) 1 MITHALI RAJ 2 JHULAN GOSWAMI 3 HARMANPREET KAUR 4 M D THIRUSH KAMINI

GRADE-B ( RS. 10 LAKH) 5 SMRITI MANDANA 6 RAJESWARI GAYAKWAD 7 POONAM YADAV 8 EKTA BIST 9 VEDA KRISHNAMURTHY 10 NIRANJANA NAGARAJAN 11 POONAM RAUT

Following players were added in Grade ‘B’ as they represented India in International Cricket during 2015-16 season

12 V R VANITHA 13 ANUJA ARUN PATIL 14 SHIKHA PANDEY 15 SUSHMA VERMA 16 SNEH RANA 17 DEEPTI SHARMA

In addition to the Retainership fees players playing XI are also paid fees for playing matches:

• Fees per Test Match – Rs 7 Lakh
• Fees per One Day International(ODI)- Rs 4 Lakh
• Fees per T20 Match – Rs 2 Lakh

 Wiki:Indian Cricket Team has details on contract grades of various cricketers, their jersey numbers etc.

IPL and money

The Indian Premier League has shaken up professional cricket, luring top players from five continents with big paychecks. Ben Stokes emerged as the costliest player (Rs 12.5 crore) and Jayadev Unadkat was the costliest Indian player (Rs 11.5 crore). Both of them were roped in by Rajasthan Royals. From an original pool of 1122, t578 cricketers up for auction; of these, 360 are Indian and the rest overseas players. The list of 578 includes 244 capped players, 332 uncapped and two Associates players.

Franchise purses were

Kings XI Punjab – Rs 67.5 crore

Rajasthan Royals – Rs 67.5 crore

Kolkata Knight Riders – Rs 59 crore

Royal Challengers Bangalore – Rs 49 crore

Mumbai Indians – Rs 47 crore

Delhi Daredevils – Rs 47 crore

Chennai Super Kings – Rs 47 crore

Here is a list of of players of all eight IPL teams and their salary.

Comparison of IPL fee with World leagues

As per EconomicTimes-IPL 2nd highest-paid league, edges out EPL(Mar 2010) Salary of IPl players is second only to the American National Basketball Association ( NBA) league, whose annual average salary is 2.62 million pounds. the IPL’s average salary, calculated over a year, is 2.5 million pounds. It must be remembered that the league is only played over a six-week period, making what cricketers earn for playing Twenty20 matches astounding. In the 211-team list currently monitored by average first-team pay, Royal Challengers Bangalore comes in at 12th, at an average of 57,833 pounds a week, standing two places above Manchester United.

But as in other sports, cricketers earn more money from endorsements.

Cricketers and Endorsements

In India, Not only Sex and SRK but also Cricket sells!. A major chunk of the cricketers earnings, like in other sports, comes from endorsements. Cricketers have been associated with endorsements.

Dhoni endorses 18 brands and has almost 12 crore endorsement each year.

Brands: Aircel, Pepsi, Orient PSPO, Spartan Sports, Reebok, Boost, Amity University, Gulf Oil, Amrapali Group, Ashok Leyland, McDowell’s Soda, Big Bazaar, Exide Batteries, TVS Motors, Sony Bravia, Sonata Watches, Dabur Chawanprash, Lays Wafers, Lafarge Customer Service and Maxx Mobile.

Sachin’s immense popularity has led him to be an early pioneer in India on cricket business dealings when he signed a record sports management deal with Worldtel in 1995, the value of the deal being 30 crore (US$5.99 million) over five years. His next contract with WorldTel in 2001 was valued at 80 crore (US$15.96 million) over five years. In 2006, he signed a contract with Saatchi and Saatchi’s ICONIX values at 180 crore (US$35.91 million) over three years.

In July 2010 Dhoni signed a three-year deal with Rhiti Sports Management and Mindscapes for  a whopping Rs. 210 crore. It manages Dhoni’s long list of endorsements and brand associations, corporate profile, patents and digital rights, images, visibility on social networking sites and merchandise through a joint venture. This surpassed Sachin Tendulkar’s three-year deal with sports management firm Iconix  worth Rs. 180 crore in 2006. Ref: NDTV: Dhoni signs Rs. 210-cr deal, over takes Sachin(Jul 2010)

Cricketers though endorse more than other India sportsmen are still overshadowed by Bolly-wood. Bollywood celebrities dominate endorsement ad pie. Compared to them Sports persons endorsing brands have a far more humble share that too dominated by cricketers. As it is perceived that cricket is seasonal or tournament-dependent while Bollywood celebrities are able to represent much more on an ongoing basis providing continuity,  Ref:Hindustan Times:Celebrity ads add sports weight(Sep 2011)

These mind-blowing figures are only for likes of Sachin, Dhoni and selected few. Others are not so popular.

Not Cricket But Acting as a profession

Sachin Tendulkar is an “artiste.” Not a mere cricketer, not a mere entertainer but a performer who uses creativity, imagination and skill arranging elements in such a way to affect the human senses and emotions and having a certain aesthetic value.

In May 2011, this definition was given by Income Tax Appellate Tribunal which overruled an Income Tax officer’s objections that Sachin’s income earned via commercials should not be granted tax-exemption. Sachin had reported total taxable income of Rs18.5 crore in 2002-03 and out of his total income that year, Tendulkar had received Rs 5.92 crore in foreign exchange towards sports sponsorship and advertisements from ESPN Star Sports, Pepsico and Visa. Against these receipts,

Sachin had claimed a deduction under section 80RR. The section allows a special deduction to authors, actors, artistes, playwrights and sportspeople in respect of income earned in foreign exchange from the exercise of their profession. An IT assessment officer, however, had denied the deduction on the basis that sponsorship and advertisement income was not derived from the exercise of his profession as a ‘cricketer’. (FYI In 2004, the tribunal had ruled that the income derived by Amitabh Bachchan as a host of TV show Kaun Banega Crorepati ,KBC,  was liable for deduction of tax under Section 80RR because he used his skills as an artist in the show. )  Ref:cricketoday.in:‘Actor’ Sachin gets tax exemption

Why are players paid so much?

When we read newspaper or see Television one comes across numbers like Sachin Tendular being paid Rs. 6 crore for an ad, $1,121,250 for  IPL, Mahendra Singh Dhoni – $1.5 million for IPL. And one wonders why is it that cricketer is being paid so much? Rachna’s Not only Sex and SRK but also Cricket sells talks about why advertiser flock to cricket.  Quoting from Financial Blogger P V Subramanyam’s blog post Gautam Gambhir and IPL auction!

The amount of money that Gautam makes is because of the impact that he creates through the media. THE POWER OF LEVERAGE. One teacher impacts 30 kids in a classroom. A doctor (a GP) can see 20 patients a month. At best he/ she can see 1000 patients a YEAR (forget the double counting) whereas a cricketer’s actions are taken across 100 million people. It goes on the net, on television, then there is print media, mobile, …so the IMPACT that Gautam creates is on millions. So GG gets paid more than a teacher who does not leverage. Or a doctor who does not leverage.

For a doctor to earn money he / she has to LEVERAGE (like Dr. Reddy), and for a teacher to leverage she has to set up an academy, employ more teachers, start teaching on the net, do voice supported coaching, create web enabled content, create more teachers who will use his or her content.

Once the doctor and teacher do all this, then they can compare their earnings with GG. Remember Gautam can only bat. He cannot create the ground, sell tickets, give commentary, do PR, be his own coach…etc. etc. It is an era of specialisation.

So if teachers team up, create their own BUSINESS…that would be LEVERAGE!!

What After Cricket?

What happens to cricketer after retirement? How does cricketer prepare for  it? Transition from a playing career to post-retirement life has become easier than 25 years ago. As per IndiaToday-Calling it a day (Oct 2011) maybe because the present crop of players is smarter than the previous generation and today they have many more options and opportunities. In this respect, Sunil Gavaskar was a pioneer. The maestro hosted a couple of cricket-related television programmes, acted in films, wrote books and a column even as he frustrated bowlers worldwide with his bat. So, when he became a permanent television commentator after his retirement in 1987, he had no difficulty is adapting to the new life. But for others transition is not that smooth. Quoting from Sanjay Manjerakar’s article on ESPCCricInfo:Thank god for the IPL(Apr 2011)

A cricketer spends the prime of his life, starting from about age 10, on the cricket field, training to become a top-class player. When he finally becomes one of the rare few to make it to the top, he discovers he has only a short time there to make the most of his acquired skills. Other performing artists are more fortunate than cricketers in this regard, and yes, I don’t have to say this, you know it well: a 21-year cricket career is possible only for the chosen ones.

Of course, cricketers who can build around their core cricket skills are able to carve out careers in media, coaching and other related occupations, and thus sustain themselves after their cricket careers are over.

But there are many who are incapable of developing other skills, and feel completely lost in the world outside cricket. It’s a horrible feeling when the cricketer starts to realise that the skills he acquired with great effort over the years, the skills he was so proud of and which people paid good money to watch, are slowly beginning to desert him with age. And then that day comes when it dawns on him that the world has no use for him anymore. I guess that is a fact of life that hits everyone at some point of their lives, but cricketers are less prepared for it than most.

Sachin, Ganguly, Zaheer and Sehwag have tried their hands at restaurant business. Anil Kumble launched a cricket software company and brought out a sports magazine. As per Livemint:Why the restaurant biz just isn’t cricket(Oct 2009) the popularity of cricketers doesn’t guarantee the success of restaurants that seek to leverage their names.  In Mumbai Sachin’s, a café named after the cricket star in Mumbai, was closed following poor response from consumers, his website Tendulkar’sworld is out-dated (dated 2004). In New Delhi, Sehwag Favourites has shut down, Sourav Ganguly’s restaurant in Kolkata saw its popularity waning and was also shut down.

Reminds me the advertisement of Yuvraj Singh and Virendra Sehwag of Birla “Jab tak balla chal raha hai, tab tak thaath hain…jab balla nahin chalega to.”

 Related Articles:

• Sports person income and endorsments : Virat Kohli, Maria Sharapova
• Cricket:BCCI , BCCI Finances and Lodha Committee
• Is IPL the Indian Premier League the Indian Paisa League?
• Sports as career:So your child wants to be cricketer,badminton player
• What does Bharat Ratna winner get?

Cricketing careers often hang on slender threads. Here, ability and luck waltz amidst swings in fortunes. Only few like Sachin, Dhoni rake in the moolah. For others it’s a struggle to break into the national team, if selected have their performance dissected by billion people, and once they stop playing fade away from public eye. When we started the article we also believed that yes cricketers make in lot of money, but at the end we are not so sure. What do you think about the cricketers and their money? Would you allow your child to take up cricket as a profession.