Published: Mar 06, 2016, 02:07 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 06, 2016, 02:07 PM (IST)
Over the years, sports in India have taken a big turn commercially. Be it with Indian Premier League (IPL) in Cricket, Indian Super League (ISL) in Football, International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) in Tennis, Pro Kabaddi League in Kabaddi, Premier Badminton League (PBL) in Badminton, Hockey India League (HIL) in Hockey, all these sports have been turned into a commercial venture. The amount of money involved in each of these leagues is staggering and each player taking part in these leagues earns huge money. The likes of India’s key players MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli earn ₹75000 per minute, which is quite some money. But the big shocking fact revealed from the recent Indian sporting salaries is 2012 London Olympics winner Yogeshwer Dutt earns more than the two Indian cricketers per minute. READ: Asia Cup T20 2016: Image of Taskin Ahmed holding MS Dhoni chopped off head makes round in social media
Dutt, a Padma Shri winner, earns ₹1.65 lakh per minute for his stint in Pro Wrestling League. While it is to note that cricket is a lengthier sport than wrestling, hence overall earning in a match for likes of Dhoni and Kohli is more than Yogeshwer Dutt, what is also very interesting to note is the fact that other sports apart from cricket have got huge money involved in them, due to leagues been formed. In fact, till few years ago, there was a huge divide in the earning of sports persons in cricket and in other sports. READ: Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja take part in photo shoot
The Salary report also indicates the value of foreign players in the leagues. When calculated, ₹823 crores were spent by teams across the eight different leagues, out of which Indians earned ₹296 crores as salaries, whereas the foreign athletes earned ₹527 crores. Another fact notifying the growth of other sports league apart from cricket is that the highest earning sportsperson in Indian leagues were from tennis and not cricket. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, both grossed a whooping ₹26 crore each time in IPTL.
Another interesting fact was that out of the total of 857 players across the leagues, 521 were Indians and rest 336 were foreigners. The higher earning of foreign players even though they are less in number is due to marketability they bring with themselves. The IPL, which was called the ‘money league’ when it began, has been overtaken by IPTL, in which the average salary of a player is ₹5.5 crore. The final figure, which is the most astonishing fact about these leagues, is that the total salary for players in them is ₹1100 crore, which is equivalent to 75% of India’s sport budget. Now that says something.
