MUMBAI: There is now an official on record statement of the financial terms surrounding Olympic and World Championship Silver medallist PV Sindhu’s record four-year sports sponsorship deal with Chinese sports brand Li-Ning.
“Sindhu’s deal is one of the biggest in world badminton. It is close to Rs 50 crore (Rs500 million) for sponsorship and equipment,” Mahender Kapoor, director, Sunlight Sports Pte Ltd, the multinational exclusive partner of Li-Ning in India, has told PTI.
“It will be a deal which is very close to Puma’s deal with Indian cricketer Virat Kohli in terms of yearly sponsorship. Sindhu will get Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) as sponsorship while the rest will be for equipment, so it is close to Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million),” Kapoor claimed.
For a more like-to-like comparison, Li-Ning’s four-year deal with India’s premier male badminton star Kidambi Srikanth, announced last month, is valued at Rs 350 million, comprising of sponsorship & equipment supply.
Kohli had set the benchmark for sports endorsement deals in India when he signed on to be the face of German sports lifestyle brand Puma in 2017 in a deal worth Rs 1.1 billion spread over eight years (Rs 137.5 million per year).
Sindhu’s sponsorship agreement with the Chinese sports major, which is worth Rs 100 million per year, makes her the biggest single brand endorser in the country after King Kohli and takes her past the other two titans of Indian sports endorsements – MS Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar.
Sindhu, who rose to stardom after becoming the first Indian woman to win a Silver medal at the Rio Olympics, was listed as the world’s seventh-highest paid sportswoman on the Forbes list last year, with total earnings of $ 8.5 million (endorsements – $8 million; prize money – $500,000)
This is Li-Ning’s second stint with Sindhu, endorsed the brand for two years in 2014-15 for Rs 12.5 million a year.
In 2016, Sindhu was back with Yonex for a Rs 35 million per year contract for a period of three years.
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