MUMBAI: Team India cricket captain Virat Kohli has become the first sportsperson to earn top spot in the Forbes India Celebrity 100 List since its inception.
His take home: A massive Rs 2.5272 billion in annual earnings.
Kohli topped the 2019 list thanks to match fees, the BCCI central contract, brand endorsements and a massive fee for every sponsored social media post. His earnings constitutes 6.57% of the total earnings – Rs 38.4294 billion – of the top 100 celebrities for the year, according to Forbes India’s estimates.
The 2019 Forbes India Celebrity 100 List rankings were based on estimates of earnings through professions and endorsements of celebrities and estimates of their fame. The period under consideration is from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019.
Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who had ruled at the top for the previous three years, slipped down to the third position, while fellow actor Akshay Kumar jumped one spot to the second rank.
Not surprisingly, the other two stalwarts who make up Indian sport’s Big 3 – MS Dhoni and Sachin tendulkar – also figure in the Top 10 of the rankings. While MS is listed at 5th spot with earnings of Rs 1.3593 billion, cricket legend Tendulkar comes in at 9th with earning of Rs 769.6 million.
“The inevitability of such lists being dominated by men, which itself tells a tale of the lack of pay parity across genders in every local film industry and in every sport. In cricket, a whopping Rs 6.5 crore separates top men players from the women when it comes to the central contract. But when it comes to performance, there is no gap,” said Brian Carvalho, Editor, Forbes India.
There are 30 women on the list this year, up from 17 in 2018.
