IPL stars Smith, Warner to suffer financial losses
NEW DELHI: The Cape Town ball tampering scandal will burn a hole in Steve Smith and David Warner’s pockets. The two biggest earners in Australian cricket are expected to lose substantially in the wake of ‘Sandpapergate’.
Under pressure to punish Smith and Warner for bringing the national side to disrepute, Cricket Australia will be on a sticky wicket when it renegotiates the (Australian) $600 million five-year TV deal with Channel Nine at the end of this year. The marketability of the Baggy Green has taken a beating after the tampering controversy.
Smith and Warner were among the clutch of international players ‘retained’ by their respective IPL teams. Smith has already been axed as Rajasthan Royals captain and Sunrisers Hyderabad could take a similar decision on their talismanic leader, Warner. Royals and Hyderabad had retained Smith and Warner for ~12 crore and ~12.5 crore, respectively. “The scandal will hit the image of both the stars and they could lose almost 20 per cent of the their sponsorship earnings because of this,” said a source aware of Smith and Warner’s endorsement deals.
If Smith and Warner are banned for a year, they will miss 13 Tests, 24 ODIS and five T20s. CA pays $14000 per Test, $7000 per ODI and $5000 per T20 and the sum goes up to $3,70,000. Their Big Bash annual contract is around $1,50,000.
So if Smith is banned for a year, he stands to lose roughly $4.5 million from on-field earnings alone. The Australia captain is on the highest retainer contract list with a base salary of around $2 million per year. Warner gets an annual retainership of $810,000 from CA.
Sanitarium, on Tuesday, became the first company to distance itself from Steve Smith as cereal-makers Weet-bix, that once boasted of the Aussie skipper as one of its kids, removed all his references from their website.
Smith is also the face of Korean electronics brand Samsung and one of the brand ambassadors of American footwear company New Balance. Warner is associated with brands like Asics (footware), LG Electronics, Channel Nine (broadcasters), Gray Nichollas (UK bat manufactuers), Milo (Nestle’s health drink) and Make my wish (an Australiabased NGO).
Jaimie Fuller, executive chairman of Skins compression wear, said Cricket Australia’s reputation is on the line.
In a full-page advertisement in Australian newspapers, Fuller said: “Cricket is such a part of our national psyche that it helps define us. It helps give us a sense of what is fair, and what is not; what is right and what is wrong. Even though you (Cricket Australia) are presiding over the sport, it doesn’t belong to you. You are the custodians of it. And now you must get your job right.”