Will the captaincy for white ball cricket up Rohit Sharma’s brand value?

Rohit Sharma has been named as India’s full-time ODI and T20I captain by the Selection Committee. Sharma’s captaincy was announced by the BCCI last week while revealing the squad for the Test series in South Africa. While Virat Kohli will continue to lead the Test side, Rohit has also been elevated as the vice-captain in the longest format. He has always been a master batsman in white ball cricket – both for India and the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise team. His superlative performance in the 2019 World Cup in England, which included 5 centuries, helped India sail to the semi-finals comfortably. He accumulated 648 runs and topped the batting average. In the recently concluded T-20 series against New Zealand at home, he won the series for India.

Being appointed captain for white ball cricket will definitely have a positive impact in Rohit’s brand value, which currently is estimated at around Rs 200 crore. Recently, he was roped in as the brand ambassador of Infinity Learn by Sri Chaitanya, an edtech company. As a cricketer Rohit Sharma’s brand personality resonates and connects with many brands as he is embodied with strong and relevant brand characteristics such as style, trust, energetic, leadership, cool, aggressive, ambitious and success.

On the other hand, Indian cricket team test captain Virat Kohli has retained the top position as the country’s most valuable celebrity brand for the fourth consecutive year, with a brand value of $237.7 million, according to a leading brand valuation report. While Virat is way ahead of Rohit, but if Rohit is able to deliver success consistently, he has a good chance to increase his brand value in the coming years. Kohli has been holding the leadership position for the last many years and has consistently performed except in the last two years, where he has been a bit inconsistent. Rohit and Virat are two different personalities with their own leadership style, but both have unflinching determination and commitment to deliver results. Virat today has more than 30 brands with whom he is aligned and has a huge follower base in social media, which grew over 50% in the last one year.

Cricketers, like successful film stars, have enormous commercial appeal – Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni were always in demand for endorsing products till recently. Even some retired cricketers like Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag were roped in recently for brand endorsements.

As frontline cricketers, both Virat and Rohit are expensive for endorsements, but brands are willing to invest that big sum as it helps them to beat the clutter and get noticed. Modern day cricketers are very versatile in adjusting to different formats of the game. In the recent past, Rohit has quickly adapted himself to the red ball cricket, which has brought in the trust and reliability factor for brands to align with him.

Rohit Sharma is currently promoting brands such as, Oakley, CEAT, Hublot, Candid Powder, Chaitanya Edutech, and IIFL finance, among others. Now, taking the mantle of leadership for both formats of white ball cricket, he will be keenly watched in all formats of the game. The brands he is currently associated with will have high expectations from his performance, while his performance on the field will see many new brands aligning with him to boost their visibility and performance.

The brand value of a cricketer depends not on his role, but his personal performance, as well as the equity and engagement that he has with his fans. A classic example is Dhoni. He has huge star power even after stepping down from international cricket.

Sharing her views, Nisha Sampath, Managing Partner, Bright Angles Consulting LLP, said, “In today’s times, personal branding is also extremely important for cricketers, and this is something Virat Kohli has excelled at. He is associated with certain distinct traits – like being aggressively competitive, a fitness fanatic, etc. This makes him stand out amongst his team mates as an endorser whom brands want to associate with, to leverage his attributes. And it will hold him in good stead, even when he is no longer captain.”

Sampath further said, “Rohit is a super talented cricketer, but till now he has not really built a personal brand image the way Kohli has. If he does that, then I think in the long term he will definitely reap the benefit of more lucrative brand contracts.” 

According to Shashwat Das, Founder Director, Almond Branding, “The brand value of Rohit Sharma will only move northward with him taking over as the captain. The endorsement fees that Sharma used to charge till now would easily go up by 60-70%, if not double. However, it might take him long to reach anywhere close to what Virat commands, being India’s most valuable celebrity.”

Das felt that the fact that Sharma gets the baton quite late into his career, he would have lesser time to rise to that kind of stardom. “As I see it, this change of leadership was long overdue. Brands with foresight, who have already taken a proactive role in associating themselves with him stand to gain the most. Other brands who love to be always associated with a leadership stance will also look out for his endorsements. We are definitely seeing Sharma more on our screens,” he added.

Sharma has kept his focus clear on the game and has been known for his consistent performance on the field. He has been successfully leading the Mumbai Indian IPL team and now the captaincy of the Indian team is going to give him better opportunities to show his real calibre. That, in turn, will bolster his position in the brand world.

Abhoy Chattopadhyay, Co-Founder SPORTSCOMM (A division of ECLLP), who has been closely following sports and cricket closely for several years, commented, “Captaincy of the Indian National Cricket team does add in to a cricketer’s brand value, because it’s just not about managing the team on field, but also adds a whole lot of other responsibilities to the athlete’s shoulder outside the field as well. And when that someone is Rohit Sharma, you know it for a fact that his brand value would sky rocket, especially when his success as a captain and his potential and quality as a cricketer is well known.”

It’s a no brainer that we will see brands flocking to have Rohit Sharma with them, but what will be more interesting is to watch how he chooses these new brands, and which all of his existing partnerships he retains. His brand would have a way long spell if he chooses his partnerships that go hand-in-glove with his personality and with a long-term association in mind, which would help him perform more efficiently on the field and wouldn’t disturb his mind worrying about his commercial interests in short spells.

Navroze D Dhondy – Founder and Managing Director – Creatigies Communications, remarked, “Captaincy does add a halo to any player’s career. And so will it for Rohit Sharma. As soon as you are a “leader of men”, your value to the team goes up. You are seen as a “thinker and doer” and that definitely adds a new dimension and sheen to the player’s character and increases brand value.”

Dhondy further remarked, “I do think this development will get more brands to make a beeline for Rohit. He has shown his leadership skills by winning the IPL multiple times and that would encourage marketeers to believe he will succeed in this role on the international level leading India to greater success. There would be some “wait and watch” types who would see how things unfurl and then take the plunge to get Rohit as a brand ambassador.”