Alternative source of income: A confusing and conflicting phenomenon in Indian sports

MS Dhoni depicted as Vishnu holding up his multiple endorsements

With more money comes more opportunities and with more opportunities comes more exposure.

This holds good for the sports personalities of today. From playing on field to being called in to act in a deodorant advertisement, the Indian sports personalities have seen it all. They have acted in movies, played cameo roles in advertisements, written books, written columns in newspapers and started their own business. The scope for diversifying and looking beyond the game has become manifold.

But is this opportunity made available for all the sports personalities in India?

Disambiguation of ‘alternative income for sports personalities’

In order to understand the concept of the term ‘sports personality’ in this context, we need to understand two concepts. There are players who are well established and do not depend on ‘alternative’ sources of income to survive. Take Sachin Tendulkar for example. He does not need to sign a contract with an advertisement agency in order to pay his bills. On the other hand, there are players who have achieved decent success and have decent ranking at the national and international level. These players do not have the opportunity to sign contract with top endorsement firms or open up businesses on their own. They get picked to play for government organizations like SBI, ONGC through sports quota.

“The former instance is a huge image-management industry, where money is not the main motive. In the latter instance, the players make part of their survival money from playing prize-money tournaments, but it is their employers who pay them an assured monthly salary.”, says a veteran sports journalist when asked about the ‘money factor’ behind these alternative sources.

‘Alternative sources of income’ and its association with ‘famous’

We would be blatantly wrong if we think that only the well-established players get to venture into alternative sources of income. This might be true in the case of endorsements and movie gigs but the term ‘alternative’ encompasses so many other aspects that one can’t generalize it and associate it with the term famous. There are sports personalities (and many who come in this category) who start working with organizations with their merit certificates in hand.

“There is a third category. A lot of sportspersons are really good-looking people; and they could easily land themselves modelling or even acting gigs, purely on account of their looks. So, the fact that they are sportspersons becomes merely incidental,” laughs the sports journalist.

“Well, it is not necessary for you to be well-established to take up an alternative source in addition to the sport that you play. Anybody with the proper contacts and the right idea can come up with a business strategy or join an organization and work there,” says Ashwin Vijayaragavan, India’s Davis Cup player.

Supporting this statement, the journalist says, “I mean, what’s keeping a very good college-level sportsperson who could probably have struck it out as a professional from choosing to focus on his academics, finishing a degree and getting a job purely on the basis of his education, while also playing the sport at prize-money events whenever he can? In fact, I know a few people like that.”

“I don’t think it is easy for developing players to easily obtain alternative source of income. In fact, even if we want to work for a company part-time, there is a lot of issues like time management and lack of sleep which is very hard on us,” says Gowtham Ganesh, a Chennai division II India Cements fast bowler.

The ‘Diversion’ factor

There is always this association that once these sports personalities get into acting or endorsing a brand, they get diverted from the game as such. “He is always acting in advertisements. How will he have the time to practice and play cricket well,” says an 85 year old cricket fan K. Raman when asked about cricketers endorsing brands. Blaming their off-field cameos for their on-field performance is something that India is known for.

In answer to this, the sports journalist says, “It would be very simplistic to blame poor on-field performances to time spent on the ramps at fashion shows or in shooting commercials. The irony is that, in most instances, it is on-field successes that makes them interesting to advertisers and fashion show promoters.”

A famous example for taking the limelight to her head is Anna Kournikova who despite never having won a WTA singles title, gained world-wide popularity because of her off-field antics in the form of acting and modelling. In this case, it was tennis which diverted her from achieving success.

Balancing the on-field and off-field performances

Balancing is something that is very individualistic and is very difficult to draw specific conclusions on the players’ ability to weigh both properly. It is basically learning how to prioritize and make use of time judiciously.

When it comes to writing columns, it has become a fascinating addition and has been drawing people’s attention a lot these days. Chris Gayle has his own column in The Hindu, ‘Gayle’s column’ which is widely read by many cricketing fans. Is it possible to write columns and concentrate on their game? Yes. When writing comes naturally, it is wonderful to read them write about aspects which might not have been heard of by the fans because it is something only the players’ experience.

“I’ve found (cricket) tour diaries, mostly by Australian and English cricketers, extremely fascinating to read, and have been grateful for their publication. I found tour diaries by Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and now Michael Clarke extremely informative and entertaining. England’s Michael Atherton and Michael Vaughan had very interesting things to write about too,” concluded the journalist.

While this might be the case for writing, it is entirely different when it comes to advertisements and movies as it is time consuming and may bite on their practice time which, if not handled properly, might become a factor to worry about.