Sindhu is privy to the fact that in India, seldom are sportspersons other than cricketers accorded open-top motorcades and tickertape parades. Yet, she is one of those icons who has attained unparalleled accolades for her victories, as it happened after her first and second World Championship medals in 2013 and 2014, the silver at Rio Olympics in 2016, the BWF World Tour finals in 2018 and the latest World Championship gold in Basel, Switzerland in 2019.
Few Indian sportspersons, again, especially outside of cricket, have made it to Forbes magazine’s list of ‘richest’ sportspersons. Sindhu is an exception; not many know that she was ranked 13th in the list of world’s highest paid female athletes in 2019. She was the only Indian name in that list which was topped by Tennis icon Serena Williams.
A year earlier in 2018, Sindhu was ranked 15th in the Top-100 celebrity endorsers list by Duff & Phelps, an American consultancy firm that specializes in financial services and has an annual list of marketable celebrities, including sportspersons around the world. Her manager, Tuhin Mishra, Managing Director and Co-founder of Baseline Ventures, which handles Sindhu’s endorsements and sponsorships, agrees with the bit about ‘her marketability’ but simply smiles when asked to put a number to her total earnings through winnings, endorsements and bonuses.
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One cannot help but wonder about the effects that the media’s relentless pursuit of Sindhu and the sports community’s scrutiny of her performances have on her emotionally. More so, when it does not stop at just social fame but also extends to hearing directly from the prime minister of India. Is encouragement tantamount to stress then? Other than PM Modi, superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan too had tweeted to Sindhu about her making India proud. In fact, imagine being gifted a brand new BMW X5 SUV worth ₹73 lakh by one of your own favourite film stars! How does it feel to be such a focal point for the nation’s aspirations? It seems Sindhu is grounded enough to not let name, fame and money get the better of her.
At one of the numerous felicitations after the Olympic Games, by the Telangana government, childlike Sindhu, surprised by her own glory despite years of self-sacrifice and hard work, told the media, ‘I’m on cloud 9. The rousing welcome made my day, didn’t expect this.’ Her parents, Ramana and Vijaya, who were acompanying her, gushed, as the mother emotionally but proudly said, ‘We are honoured to have a child like Sindhu … We are very happy for her performance and the silver medal. Next time Sindhu will come up with gold.’
It was the kind of a dream every parent holds for vis-à-vis their children. After each title win, the twitterati and the glitterati virtually take over the social media. The queue for sponsorships grew longer too; the competition to felicitate her grew fiercer and she was shooting up on the social register. State governments ranging from Telengana and Andhra Pradesh to Madhya Pradesh and Delhi announced awards.
Things reached such an extent that if one sponsor had a star to do the presentation, another sponsor would also get a different but equally major star to be present at their event. If it was film star Vijaychander presenting awards after the 2016 Olympics, it was Telugu superstar Nagarjuna after the World Championships in 2019. Film directors would arrange for special preview shows for Sindhu, who is known to be a movie buff, and designers wanted Sindhu to walk the ramp in their ensembles.
Father Ramana drove Sindhu around in his modest Maruti, the hard-working sports officer’s prized possession, but then came the luxury cars waiting for her as awards.
Two especially eye-catching ones came after the Olympic Games and then the World Championships. A Hyderabad businessman, V. Chamundeshwarnath, also the President of Hyderabad District Badminton, arranged them. The Indian Express on 23 August 2016 reported that corporates, businessmen and jewellery showrooms were waiting to show their appreciation for the medal-winner in cash and gifts. The report also mentioned the gifting of a BMW by Chamundeshwarnath. A big announcement after the Olympic silver came from Telugu film star and politician Vijaychander, who promised to gift two acres of land to Sindhu for the win. At that time it was revealed that the land belonged to Karunamayudu Charitable Trust. A United News of India report quoted Vijaychander as saying, ‘The two-acre land will be registered in the name of P.V. Sindhu and will be handed over to her by our party leader Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy at a convenient date.’ The land is located just three kilometres away from Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s farmhouse.
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Rewards also came in the form of obvious sponsorships, handled by Baseline Ventures, headed by a team including Mishra, whose team and partners also help boxers, wrestlers, shooters and volleyball players. The rewards were so many and so varied that one wonders if Sindhu or her family or the managers kept a record of it all. It was probably impossible, because the announcements came from all over. Other gifts included ₹5 crore from the Telangana government, and a ₹3 crore award from the Andhra Pradesh government which had a 1,000 sq yard house site each.
A Kerala businessman based in Dubai announced ₹50 lakh award and there was ₹30 lakh from Indian Olympic Association (IOA); ₹5 lakh from All India Football Federation (AIFF) besides ₹1.01 lakh from actor Salman Khan and ₹6 lakh worth diamond necklace from a jeweller.39 How does the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Padma Shri awardee react to this unbelievable fame? Believe it or not, she has no idea about her number of awards! The humble icon simply says, ‘My father and my management company take care of all that.’
According to her manager, Mishra, Sindhu has more than a dozen sponsorship deals. They are worth nearly ₹40 crores ($ 5.5 million) and they include a four-year ₹50 crore endorsement with Chinese sports brand Li-Ning.40 While each deal is lucrative, Sindhu’s signing up with Li Ning, a Chinese sports brand, was a landmark by itself. The company was started in 1989 by China’s greatest gymnast, Li Ning, who won six gold medals in 1984. Li Ning and Sindhu parted ways afteer 2015, but came back together in 2019 for a sum that was many times over. Sindhu’s Li Ning deal was compared to Virat Kohli’s Puma deal of 2017. The company had signed Kohli for reportedly ₹100 crore for a period of eight years
‘Sindhu’s deal is one of the biggest in world badminton. It is close to ₹50 crore for sponsorship and equipment,’ Mahender Kapoor, director, Sunlight Sports Pvt. Ltd, the multi-national exclusive partner of Li-Ning in India, told India’s premier news agency, PTI.41 Her manager, Mishra, says, ‘Sindhu’s biggest asset is her persona. She is easy to get along with, pleasant and always smiling. That plus her big wins worldwide make her a perfect brand.’ About the strategy they follow when flooded with offers, he says, ‘We don’t just rush for any deal. We look at the brand fit, see if she has dates available to give to the sponsor and so on. After all, nothing should disturb her training and competition schedules. That’s what gets her to this level in the first place.’ When I spoke to him after the World Championship win, he said, ‘There is so much euphoria and excitement that we need to be careful. She is a major choice everywhere – for products, launches, celebrity functions and so on. But, as I said, we have to evaluate every bit and see what works best.’
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Neither Sindhu nor Ramana made a big deal of it. ‘We have never asked for rewards in the first place,’ Ramana told me. ‘We just loved people enjoying Sindhu’s success.’ In the period following the Olympic Games, Sindhu’s list of endorsements kept growing Nokia made her the brand ambassador in June 2017. Also, Sindhu signed a deal with Gatorade, an energy drink brand, and the same year, in 2017, tyre brand Bridgestone India also roped in Sindhu as its main face for advertising. Also coming in were Moov and then Boost.
These subsequently included names such as Panasonic, Samsung, JBL, Johnson & Johnson, VISA, and Flipkart. Sindhu, who after college also completed a MBA degree, has lent her personality not just for products but also for the likes of Central Reserve Police Force, who appointed her as Commandant and brand ambassador of CRPF in 2016. Alongside her badminton, she also holds a job as a Collector in Hyderabad.
This excerpt from Shuttling to the Top: The Story of P.V. Sindhu written by V. Krishnaswamy has been published with permission from HarperCollins India.