When Puma asked their social media audience about their new ambassador, it created a buzz more than expected considering it was a female sportsperson. But that's the phase in which Women's sports is thriving currently.
The German sportswear giant honored Indian cricket captain Harmanpreet Kaur as its brand ambassador. Back in 2013, when she smashed her first ODI century wearing those Puma pair, it would have not occurred to her that down the line, she would become the face of the country's biggest sports brand. But that's how women's sports has involved over the past years. Although the wins have been a close miss for us in T20I knockouts, the efforts have been acknowledged by the investors. Hence the whooping bid amount of Rs. 4669.9 crores was seen getting spent in the first edition of the WPL 2023, bypassing the bids at the inaugural IPL bidding which was $723.59 million in 2008.
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The Tata Group, Dream11, and CEAT, also long-term IPL sponsors, have entered as partners for the Women’s Premier League. Tata Group bagged itself the title rights for WPL pitching in an unspecified amount every season. It jumped onto the sponsorship opportunity soon after the BCCI announced the sale of rights for WPL 2023. Whereas, Viacom18 has bagged the streaming partner title for a period of 5 years for itself by signing Rs. 951 crores deal with the Indian Cricket Board.
After BCCI's pay equity policy, players acknowledged the fact that such strong steps reignite their passion and also motivate the young talent to make this professional their career while being financially independent. The board promised Rs 15 lakh for a Test, Rs 6 lakh for an ODI, and Rs 3 lakh for a T20I for the centrally-contracted women cricketers. It was a massive hike from what they were getting paid earlier.
Opening batter Smriti Mandhana emerged as the most expensive player at the bidding, earning a Rs 3.4 crore bid from Royal Challengers Bangalore. And it is life coming to a full circle for Delhi Capital's player Jemimah Rodrigues who was once rejected by a cricket academy at the admission desk for being a girl. Now she has become the second-fastest Indian woman to reach 1,000 runs in T20Is and bagged Rs 2.2 crore to play WPL 2023. Rodrigues will be sharing the dressing room with Shafali Verma whose U19 Women's T20 World Cup post-match presentation video brought tears to every India although it was purely, 'tears of joy'. In 2019 she became the youngest cricketer to play in a Women's Twenty20 International match for India and now she will be playing alongside so many big names for the Delhi Capitals for Rs 2 crore.
It was a major step towards gender pay parity and seeing BCCI woke about the whole discussion garnered a sense of ownership towards these young passionate players, who were giving their 100% even in sub-standard facilities and mere pay cheques.
These WPL figures did make headlines but it would be tough to say if these franchises will see immediate profits with their heavy investments. But it is surely the next step toward building the brand for women's cricket. Until that shapes up, WPL is the next chapter of this journey which will require starting from the ground up and turning into a league.
These numbers justify that now cricket is not just restricted to being Gentleman's game. It's paving the way for more opportunities for women's sports and proving its commercial worth. The monetary step by the investor has set the stage and has fixed the spotlights on all the five women-led teams, now it is on the players to encash on it and take cricket fans on a thriller ride.
(Edited by : Prakhar Sachdeo)
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