Neeraj Chopra, the Olympic gold medallist, is on a spree, signing endorsement deals after his historic win in javelin throw at the Tokyo games. Some of the notable names that have signed him up include Tata AIA Life Insurance, a pharmaceutical brand and Byju’s. As per a report in Economic Times, JSW Sports, the agency representing Chopra, may soon finalise at least six more deals with brands, including a luxury auto, apparel and more.
Currently, Nike, ExxonMobil, sports drink Gatorade, and MuscleBlaze sports supplements have existing deals with Chopra. As the fees that are being offered to Chopra is much higher after his win at the Olympics, it is expected that these brands will try to match and renew the deals at higher rates. Reportedly, there is a 10-fold increase in his fees.
Mustafa Ghouse, chief executive of JSW Sports, said, “These are multi-year deals which will run-up to the Paris Olympics,” said Mustafa Ghouse chief executive of JSW Sports. He further added that Chopra has denied getting associated with alcohol or tobacco brands.
Ghouse said, “While we have requested from close to 80 brands, Neeraj has a limited number of free days between training camps in India and abroad over the next 12-14 months, so we have to be selective about signing on brands.” Apart from the mainstream endorsements, Ghouse informed that a series of digital-only deals are also lined up.
A record in its own
Experts believe that the 10-fold rise in the endorsement fees is a record for any Indian athlete after an individual event. Before the win, he charged an annual fee of just Rs 15-20 lakh per endorsement. His online presence saw a massive rise the day he won the gold and added 1.1 million followers in a single day, reports suggest. Currently, Chopra has over 4 million followers on Instagram, and almost 6,00,000 followers on Twitter and these numbers are increasing every day.
Brands tried to use Chopra’s win for their own benefit
Reports suggest that several brands tried to take advantage of his win and published posts on social media platforms without having any legal contracts with Chopra. JSW Sports had to intervene and tell those brands to take down the posts. Similar incidents had happened with PV Sindhu when she won the medal. Her talent management company Baseline Ventures had to send legal notices to over a dozen brands to take down posts that included Sindhu.
