Beyond boundaries: Shafali, Smriti and Jemimah lead the brand lineup

The top three to garner attention after the second season of WPL include Smriti Mandhana, Shefali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues

In India, women’s sports or games did not garner much attention and there were only three in the recent past, who had managed to create brand value for themselves — Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu.

However, with the Women’s Premier League (WPL) getting more screen time, things are changing. Women cricketers are now increasingly seeing brands chase them, thus pushing their endorsement deal value as well.

After the second season of WPL, the top three to get attention in this space are Smriti Mandhana, Shefali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues.

According to sources, the ask for endorsements by the top three women cricketers range from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore, which is much higher compared to other women sportsmen.

Sources said that women athletes typically charge between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 50 lakh per endorsement.

“After two seasons of WPL, and on the back of tremendous success of the tournament, along with the achievement of our women’s cricket team (most recent being the Asian Games Gold medal), there’s been a significant interest from brands for female cricketers. We’ve seen increased brand interest for the likes of Rodrigues, Verma, Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and Shreyanka Patil,” Karan Yadav, chief commercial officer at JSW Sports, told Business Standard.

Yadav said categories, which are showing interest on women cricketers, include apparel, cricket bat manufacturers,

jewellery, audio, wearables, skincare, auto (four wheelers), mobile handsets and ecommerce.

Sandeep Goyal, chairman and managing director of Rediffusion Brand Solutions, said that after WPL, these girls now have more screen time due to which they are being noticed by brands as the tournament went on for an entire month.

Goyal added, “So far, a select few female athletes have been recognised by brand and that is due to the lack of screen time.

Even WPL has low ratings and these women cricketers have not yet achieved the mass threshold.”

Yadav said that JSW Sports Consulting has been able to stitch partnerships for female cricketers.

It exclusively manages Rodrigues and Verma both of whom play for Delhi Capitals.

“Few of the brands we’ve closed for our female cricketers include CEAT, Google, PGI, BoAt and Hyundai, among others. The names of brands we’re currently in discussion with are confidential information and we can’t disclose brand names till agreements are closed,” Yadav said.

“While women’s cricket has been around for a while, it is starting to get traction but still is at a nascent stage. Cricket on the whole has a stickiness in India due to which even women’s cricket has higher viewership compared to other sports/games. This is what is working for the top performers in women’s cricket,” brand expert, Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight said.