Touted as the most marketable cricketer in the world, Indian skipper Virat Kohli’s paycheque is going to even fatter with the Indian board set to give the cricketers a pay hike soon.
Already the world’s highest-paid cricketer, Kohli’s earnings from his salary and match fee is all set to soar to $2 million (INR 100,000,000). According to a report in The Times of India, he earned $1.1 million (INR 55,000,000) in emoluments, playing a total of 46 matches in 2017.
The BCCI pays Kohli $8,000 plus performance bonus for every match played which is now likely to be nearly doubled with the committee of administrators preparing a proposal to be presented to the board.
Kohli’s Indian Premier League Contract with the Royal Challengers Bangalore pays him $3 million (INR 150,000,000), making him the highest paid player in India’s domestic cricket league for the third consecutive years.
Source: AAP
But that is just a small part of his total earnings with the bulk of the moolah coming from brand endorsements and other contracts.
Kohli has an exhaustive list of top brands, including Adidas, MRF, Tissot, Audi and PepsiCo, that have contracted him for advertisements and brand endorsements.
He has over a dozen brand endorsement contracts with big Indian brands as well. It has also been revealed that Kohli also gets paid $500,000 for promotional posts on his personal Instagram.
The Indian skipper’s total earnings are pegged around $27 million this year and are only expected to rise higher in the coming years.
Source: Instagram
His brand value currently is unparalleled in the cricketing world. Only Indian wicketkeeper MS Dhoni and Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar had the same marketing value during their heydays.
Cornerstone Sport and Entertainment- the company managing Kohli’s contracts expects his brand to reach the same level as some of the top footballers in the world.
But the Delhi lad is still a far cry from the highest earning athletes in the world, such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi who pocket a whopping US $93 million and US$80 million respectively.
Virat Kohli and his wife Anushka Sharma during the couple's wedding ceremony in Italy. Source: Instagram
