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SPORTS: CRICKET
Sachin Inc.
Cricket's one-man Fort Knox Sachin Tendulkar signs
a billion-rupee deal to become the sport's most valuable player ever.
But the market wonders if his combative manager Mark Mascarenhas can pull
off this ultimate gamble.
By Sheela Raval
Was
it Tom Cruise who taught Mark Mascarenhas how to swing the biggest deal
in Indian sport?
Playing sports agent Jerry Maguire in the film
of the same name, Cruise bellowed out the one line that has become the
mantra and motto for the "celebrity management" business. It
goes thus, at full volume: "Show me the money!" Last week Mascarenhas'
firm WorldTel did precisely that: it guaranteed Rs 100 crore (the number
is the industry's worst-kept secret even though the voluble Mascarenhas
is coy about the figure himself) to Indian sport's best-known face and
the national cricket team's beacon, Sachin Tendulkar. The five-year contract
between WorldTel and Tendulkar guarantees a billion rupees in off-field
earnings and has made him the richest cricketer in the world, ever.
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NEW DEAL: Tendulkar and Mascarenhas
start a fresh innings
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The deal was stamped with the Mascarenhas trademark:
it was bold, it made a noise and it showed its client the kind of money
no Indian celebrity has ever seen. Five years ago, Mascarenhas had done
the same: except the sum guaranteed to Tendulkar at the time was close
to Rs 30 crore for 1996-2000, in a gamble that established WorldTel as
a major player in the cricket management business. It also signalled the
start of an era where young cricket talent began to attract the attention
of corporates with deep pockets. Today, with Tendulkar's worth as a cricketer
and a brand skyrocketing and a rival giant showing interest in his portfolio,
Mascarenhas has gambled again: not just with higher stakes, but with his
company's future and his own reputation in the balance.
As Tendulkar's stock has taken wing, Mascarenhas'
has hit rock bottom in the last 12 months (see box)-World Tel's name has
cropped up in Anil Agrawal's report on irregularities in the functioning
of Prasar Bharati, a cricket magazine owned by his family and launched
with great fanfare folded up in six months and his three-year contract
with the highly lucrative Sharjah cricket series ended and now the future
of the entire enterprise is in doubt. At the same time WorldTel's five-year
contract with Tendulkar was coming to an end and sports marketing giants
IMG decided they were interested in Tendulkar too. At the start of 2001,
WorldTel was left with only one last Sharjah tournament and the rights
to cricket in Bangladesh. Had the only thoroughbred in the WorldTel stable
decided to bolt, it could have spelt the end of the firm's presence in
Indian cricket.
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FIRM FRIENDS: Tendulkar with Ravi Shastri who first introduced
him to Mascarenhas
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The deal with Tendulkar done, Mascarenhas doesn't
advertise his relief. At a private dinner with Tendulkar and friends at
Mumbai's ritzy Indigo restaurant, he admitted that the past year had been
a "terrible period", but told INDIA TODAY, "The very fact
that we have once again come together shows that our previous deal worked
well and he has faith in my ability." Tendulkar acknowledged WorldTel
and Mascarenhas' contribution to his career in a speech at a public function
at the Wankhede Stadium and told INDIA TODAY he had stayed with Mascarenhas
because of the relationship he has with him (see interview).
When IMG, which manages heavyweight clients
like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and the Williams sisters, came calling
in the first week of January, Team Tendulkar-consisting of elder brother
Ajit, wife Anjali and father-in-law Anand Mehta-did pay attention. They
scouted for opinion about the IMG offer (which was less than WorldTel's)
before agreeing to go with WorldTel only last week, some say, after three
months of persuasion by Mascarenhas. The WorldTel boss maintains Tendulkar
had confirmed that he would sign on again at the end of January. It took
five months to put pen to paper because cricket against Australia came
in between. Industry sources also say that the pressure from IMG forced
Mascarenhas to rethink his terms and cut WorldTel's commission from 30
to 15 per cent. The man himself denies this, "We have a commercial
relationship with Sachin and the renewal of that relationship had nothing
to do with IMG. We get paid a fee for what we do. We're still earning
the same fee."
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