Newly-married Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has signed a marketing deal worth 42 million dollars over two years, a report said on Tuesday.Dhoni, 29, has signed up with an Indian sports management company Rhiti, which will handle his endorsements, merchandise, corporate profile, patents and digital rights, as well as visibility on social networking sites.
"We have entered into a two-year contract with Dhoni for 2,000 million rupees (42 million dollars)," Rhiti general manager Sanjay Pandey told the Press Trust of India news agency.
"We signed the contract a week back. From now onwards we will be handling Dhoni's endorsements."
The deal, the richest in Indian cricket history, surpasses batting superstar Sachin Tendulkar's 40-million three-year contract with sports management firm Iconix in 2006.
Dhoni, often described as India's most eligible bachelor, married childhood sweetheart and hotel management student Sakshi Singh Rawat at a private ceremony outside the northern town of Dehra Dun last week.
Dhoni is reported to currently endorse 22 leading brands, including Pepsi, Reebok, Aircel, Godrej and Hersheys.
A Forbes study last year on the world's richest cricketers put him at the top with an annual earning of 10 million dollars, followed by Tendulkar at eight million dollars.
Two other Indian cricketers, Yuvraj Singh (5.5 million dollars) and Rahul Dravid (five million dollars), were ranked third and fourth, while England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff was in fifth place with four million dollars, Forbes said.
Australian Test captain Ricky Ponting was in sixth place with 3.5 million dollars a year, the magazine said, adding the figures included club and national team salaries and commercial endorsements.
Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5glJEYSBLwbIJ6kk9oqYzCRF8Av6g
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