It pays to be with Tendulkar

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Hamilton Bland, the owner of Autographs of the World, an England-based firm specialising in sports memorabilia, travelled to Hyderabad last year to meet with Sachin Tendulkar’s advisors just days after the Little Master racked up his 99th international ton. Bland eventually managed to secure a 100 of his bats, 500 of his India shirts and hundreds of his helmets, gloves and cricket balls.
The complete collection that may not have been worth more than a few lakh before the hundredth hundred, now boasts of a resale value of `30 crore, according to Bland. Each bat signed by Tendulkar in that limited edition collection is worth `2.8 lakh, each jersey valued at `1.6 lakh and a whole showcase presentation, which includes a personally signed print, shirt, bat, ball, gloves, helmet and pads, all identical to ones he wore when he scored his 100th century, is up for grabs for a cool `1.2 crore.
It took the man a full year and a journey across three continents to go from 99 to 100 international hundreds, and while it is simply a bump in number for a statistician, the enormity of the record isn’t lost on anyone who’s associated with the Master. Especially when the record means big money.
The coming weeks will see a slew of advertisements, marketing gimmicks and limited edition products by at least half-a-dozen of the 17 brands he endorses, all eager to leverage his record hundred. Coke cans are going to be golden in colour instead of the iconic red with Tendulkar’s face emblazoned in each one of them. Coca Cola had kept them ready since last June, waiting patiently for Tendulkar to finish his quixotic journey. Adidas did something similar and will finally market their merchandise that had been co-designed by Sachin himself.
While the marketing frenzy following the 100th 100 doesn’t necessarily mean that Sachin’s brand valuation will go up, those aligned with him will feel a lot better with the record achieved, especially after a lean 2011. “We have always felt that his value has been indexed to his legendary stature and while 100th hundred reinforces it I do not think it impacts current valuation. He’s a little beyond the game today,” said Harish Krishnamachar, vice president of World Sports Group South Asia, the firm representing Tendulkar.
A rival agent of another top Indian cricketer agreed. “Tendulkar has had a long relationship with many of the companies who stuck by him when it was clear that age was starting to catch up with him. There were a few who were nervous last year and didn’t know how long he’ll keep on playing. But they’ll be much happier now,” he said.
Sachin charges, on an average, `8 crore per brand, and only Mahendra Singh Dhoni has managed to surpass him recently, managing to rake in between `9 to 10 crore per brand. But Tendulkar is still the world’s richest cricketer with estimated earnings from the game and endorsements well in excess of `500 crore thanks to 22 years of top-flight cricket.
In all those years, he’s been largely untouched by controversies and fame, and made his name bulletproof, unlike many international stars who may earn more, but are more prone to market fluctuations.
The 36-year-old American baseball player Derek Jeter has made more money, putting bat to ball, than anybody on the planet. Like Tendulkar, he’s a veteran, having been playing for the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball for the last 17 years. Between May 2010 to May 2011, he made a whopping $29 million. Tendulkar doesn’t even come close. But unlike Tendulkar, Jeter’s career has been littered with controversies.
“Sachin’s brand values are comparable to the rest. He brings more to the table to a brand than a say Tiger Woods simply because he’s so clean. He’s faced the pressures of a huge audience and in spite of it remained stoic for more than two decades,” said Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather, who has worked with the Master in many advertisements. “Simply put, he has transcended the game.”
Bland, who possesses memorabilia from every sportsperson of repute, added, “I pitched the idea of a collection based on his hundred centuries when I met him in Kolkata last year. He loved the idea, but had one request: that India and not he should be the main focus of the collection. That struck me about him. No sportsperson has ever requested me that.”
It’s these qualities which, experts feel, will keep Brand Sachin strong even after he retires. Those at the WSG aren’t taking any risks though. “We are building private equity labels for him as in the case of ‘Sach’ with Future Group and Adidas for example. This along with some other plans in the pipeline will ensure that the revenue potential remains constant even after he gives up playing,” Krishnamachar added.
Bland confesses that he’ll make a neat profit out of his association with Tendulkar, just like many others have before him. When Sachin was first signed up by the management firm run by the late Mark Mascarenhas in 1996 for a guaranteed $6 million for five years, the talk was whether Mascarenhas would be able to deliver. The returns he eventually managed dwarfed the deal by a huge margin.
It pays to be with Tendulkar. Just ask those at Boost, who aligned with him in 1990 and haven’t let go of him since. It’s the longest association any sportsperson has had with a brand.