Cricketers beat Bollywood when it comes to Insta followers
Apr 8, 2023
Credit: ICC Cricket
With huge fan following comes huge endorsements
The massive popularity of cricket in India translates to large endorsements for cricketers. The overall spending on cricketers’ endorsements stood at ₹640 crore in 2022 – which rose 20 percent from the previous year, says GroupM ESP Sporting Nation Report 2023.
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Scoring high on social media
What’s fuelling this money into cricketers’ kitty is their massive social media popularity that’s adding to their on-field appeal. Let’s take a look at top Indian cricketers and their Instagram popularity.
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Virat Kohli
The king of brand endorsements has 30 brands under his kitty. He also has 24.4 crore followers on Instagram. That beats the fan following of his wife, Anushka Sharma, a Bollywood star who has 6.3 crore followers.
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Mahendra Singh Dhoni
The former captain of the Indian cricket team who has been seen in several ads like Cars24, Colgate, Oreo, Bharat Matrimony and others, has over 4.1 crore Instagram followers, beating King of Bollywood – Shah Rukh Khan – who has 3.7 crore followers.
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Sachin Tendulkar
Considered as one of the greatest batsmen in history, Sachin Tendulkar has 3.95 crore followers on Instagram, higher than that of legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan who has 3.35 crore followers.
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Rohit Sharma
Celebrated batsman and current captain of India men’s cricket team, Rohit Sharma has 2.74 crore followers on Instagram - higher than that of famous actors like Vicky Kaushal, who has 1.47 crore followers.
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Hardik Pandya
Gujarat Titans’ captain Hardik Pandya has 2.53 crore Instagram followers, considerably more than Kareena Kapoor Khan, who has 1 crore followers.
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KL Rahul
With 1.39 crore followers, captain of IPL team Lucknow SuperGiants KL Rahul has more followers than actress Karishma Kapoor. Kapoor has 77 lakh followers.
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Other cricketers
Fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah has 1.02 crore followers on Instagram while batsman Shubman Gill has 40 lakh, Rishabh Pant has 79 lakh, Surya Kumar Yadav has 74 lakh and Shreyas Iyer has 70 lakh followers.
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Women cricketers
Former captain of the India women's national cricket team, Mithali Raj has 18 lakh followers on Instagram while present caption Harmanpreet Kaur has 19 lakh. Smriti Mandhana has 77 lakh and Shafali Verma has 4.02 lakh followers.
Credit: BCCL