Retired hurt for around a year, fast-bowler Jasprit Bumrah is back in action. On the field, his long-awaited return begins with him leading team India in the T20 series in Ireland. Off the field, brand Bumrah is all set to make a mark with more endorsements and higher fees.
Despite the biggest break of his cricketing career, Bumrah's brand portfolio continued to grow from 11 brands before the 11 month gap that he took due to his injury to 13 brands currently along with one more deal signing on the way. The pacer signed two brand deals during the long break.
He currently endorses brands like uppercase, Dream11, Unix, Thums Up, among others. While the number of brands in his portfolio are expected to increase to 20 from 13, up by 50 percent, his brand value is estimated to increase by 25 to 30 percent in next 12 months, say brand experts.
Bumrah currently charges in the range of Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 crore a day for an endorsement.
Brand enquiries are increasing with all the excitement around Bumrah especially with the top pacer saying that his objective has always been to prepare for 50-over games such as the Asia Cup, which starts on August 31 and the World Cup, which starts on October 5.
"Everyone wants a pie of Bumrah and we have brands pitching to us on why they should sign Bumrah. But we want to have the right narrative and get the right partnership," Nikhil Bardia, head of sponsorship sales and talent management at Rise Worldwide, told Moneycontrol. Rise Worldwide is a sports entertainment and lifestyle company that manages the brand portfolio of Bumrah.
Bumrah is one of the most successful bowlers in India, who has a big fan base and brands would want to capitalise on that, noted Abhishek Sharma CEO of Athletes Today, a sports management and licencing agency. "Currently, he endorses more brands than any other fast bowler in India.
Sharma said that Bumrah has a winning mentality and brings a larger fan base with him and his comeback is crucial for the Indian team. "He is one of the top key players that brands would want to get associated with because of his uniqueness and confidence," he added.
On the content front, Bardia said that there will be more campaigns around him. "Brands are being more active and from a fan perspective there is lot of excitement around him. There will be lot of digital activation and a lot around the World Cup," he said.
The focus Bardia said is on making Bumrah more available to his fans. "People are going to see lot more insights of Bumrah. Going forward, you will see him sharing content about Sanjana (Ganesan, Bumrah's wife) and him. We want to keep building the Bumrah brand."
He said that eight years back when Bumrah came on board as a talent, the idea for him and his team was how to make a mark for a bowler in the global world. "We knew what we were up against. In the commercial world, it was always about the batsmen. We had to work on how to defy the stereotypical bowler narrative for brands and how to create the benchmark where bowlers are seen in the same breath as batters."
In the next three months, there will be more content around Bumrah and that's key part to growing his brand, Bardia added.
Social media will be a crucial part of his comeback journey with more digital activations. "He has the highest social media following among bowlers in the world. A 10.4 million following on his Instagram. Also, during the gap, there was no drop in following and it remained stable because we had reduced content. But the post talking about his come back was the most viewed," Bardia said.
Sharma expects Bumrah's social media following to increase further. "It will only get higher and bigger as we come close to the World Cup because he is the main wicket taker for the team. So, his social media presence is impactful and his engagement rate is high, and this brands would want to capitalise on his comeback."
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