Companies agree not to air campaigns

In an attempt to diffuse the International Cricket Council (ICC) sponsorship row some top companies have sportingly agreed not to telecast campaigns featuring leading Indian cricketers during the September 12-29 Champions Trophy one-day tournament in Sri Lanka.

Top Indian cricketers who have signed sponsorship contracts with many high-profile companies, had requested that commercials featuring them be taken off till the end of the tournament.

Hoping to solve the crisis between the ICC and the Indian stars TVS Susuki and Coca Cola have accepted the Indian player's request. But the ICC is not agreeable to this move by the Indian players and insist their endorsements remain shelved for up to 30 days after the Champions Trophy.

However it is not so simple.

Over 15 companies will jointly have to agree not to air the campaigns prior to and after the Champions Trophy.

Sachin Tendulkar is regarded as the richest cricketer in the world with personal endorsements worth an estimated $20 million from Visa Card, Pepsi, Today's Pens, Boost, Sahara, Fiat Pallio, Boost, Himani Sona, Tiger, Chandi and Hero Honda.

Hence it will be tough for all the companies to back out from airing their advertisements featuring the top Indian star.

Sahara Airlines had just completed their campaign with Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh and were scheduled to start airing their campaign from the first week of September on Star Plus.

Interestingly, some of the television broadcaster will be badly affected if top companies pull back their advertisements.

Doordarshan and Sony have tied-up to telecast the Champions Trophy but if top companies will not be airing the advertisements featuring the cricketers, there will be a huge loss of revenue for them.

According to information from various companies here, if they agree to the player's request to hold-back the commercials they will not get the value for the money invested on the cricketers.

Ganguly has reportedly been paid $1 million for his Honda advertisement while Dravid receives a similar pay cheque from Kissan, Reebok, Castrol and Palmolive advertisements. Even VVS Laxman has picked up $200,000 for his Pepsi and Ray Ban campaigns.

Newcomers Hemang Badani and Mohammed Kaif also earned around $100,000 for the Britannia advertisements while Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh have received the same amount for their appearance in Pepsi campaigns.