Top 5 Cricketers who are successful businessmen

Virat Kohli. (Photo Source: Pramod Thakur/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

There’s more to life than just cricket. Cricketers can play the sport up to a certain age and after their retirement, they tend to indulge themselves in different walks of life. Some of them start their own business ventures. Nowadays, cricketers get into business way before their retirement as they want to establish a strong foundation for life post-cricket.

With cricket’s growing culture in India, national cricketers are way more than just cricketers. They build a brand around them and associate with different big names. In hindsight, they try to do something on their own. They fail at times, but with their face value and nationwide popularity, they have advantages to be successful as well.

Some choose different verticals to establish a business whereas some keep it aligned with cricket. They indulge themselves in different types of businesses such as restaurants, international schools, start-ups, etc. In the same context, let’s take a look at-

Top 5 Cricketers who are successful businessmen

1. Yuvraj Singh

India’s two-time World Cup winner Yuvraj Singh is the latest entrant in this list. The Former Indian all-rounder announced his retirement during Cricket World Cup 2019. From that time onwards, he invested his time in building his businesses but he started his entrepreneurial journey way before that.

Being a cancer survivor himself, he set up an organization named YouWeCan which has helped hundreds of cancer patients over the years. With an exclusive partnership with Microsoft, this venture earns revenue and invests in new-age startups. These investments vary from a health-based company Healthians to Holosuit, a virtual reality company.

This wide range of spectrum made ‘Yuvi’ a strong businessman. He even launched a sports-based e-commerce online store named sports365.in, primarily selling sports equipment. Along with these, Yuvraj himself endorses known brands which add value to his portfolio.

4. Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene

Sangakkara and Jayawardene’s partnership is going strong off the field as well. These two Sri Lankan legends are best of friends who shared dressing rooms for a large part of their lives. This camaraderie gets reflected post-cricket as well.  Interestingly, apart from cricket, these two bond over food as well which intrigued a business idea in their head.

Sanga being a foodie himself floated the idea of starting a restaurant. With renowned Lankan chef Dharshan Munidasa and his former colleague Mahela, they started off a seafood restaurant. Ever since its inauguration, it has been a hit among the masses. Good food quality and perfect ambiance attract food lovers any day, and the Ministry of Crab(MoC) follows that path.

In India, even Sachin Tendulkar started his own restaurant chain named Tendulkar’s but after a poor response, it got shut down in 2009. Sanga and Mahela understood the need of the hour and captured the market with their restaurants in India as well.

3. Sachin Tendulkar

Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar has been associated with brands ever since Mark Mascarenhas came into his life in the mid-90s. The association with brands just started in cricket and Sachin was a close witness to that shift in the game. Though Sachin was endorsing brands, he didn’t establish any big business ventures till 2000. He then set up a food restaurant named Tendulkar’s with a big business group.

But due to poor response from the customer, they had to close in 2009. Then toward Sachin’s cricket retirement, he started investing. He invested in Smaaash, a sports and gaming arena that provides virtual reality-based experiences. An IoT start-up named Smartron got funded by SRT, and he later became the brand ambassador.

His latest notable association was with Unacademy back in 2021. Besides endorsing this EdTech, it was reported that Sachin invested an undisclosed amount into it. And EdTech is selling like a hotcake in the present market. Tendulkar also keeps money invested in start-ups like JetSynthesys, and Spinny as well.

2. MS Dhoni

Former Indian World Cup-winning captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is an astute businessman. His sharp brain works in the field of business as well. He has put in money in different types of business ventures and has built an empire around his brand.

He joined hands with Seven, a casual and sportswear brand back in 2016. It had MS on its advertisements. In 2021, 7Inkbrews roped in MS as their brand ambassador. If rumors are to be believed, MS has stakes in this food and beverages D2C company. In the same year, Khatabook had MS as their investor. Even with his old friend and business partner Arun Pandey, he launched a chain of gyms SportsFit World.

Interestingly, last year MS stepped into the film business and this time Dhoni Entertainment Private Limited is set to become a production house. And it’s all set to present its first movie, whose poster was launched by MS himself. Going forward keeping in mind Dhoni’s popularity down South, this production house will always have fans’ close watch.

1. Virat Kohli

Current Indian cricketer Virat Kohli tops the chart with his business empire. Helmed as one of the best batters of his era, Kohli is an absolute superstar. Brands are getting lined up one after another behind his name. But, the Delhi boy didn’t stop there, he established businesses as well.

When Virat signed the Puma deal, he interestingly built a new brand with their association. Based on his jersey number 18, the brand One8 is a leading sportswear brand in today’s time. Even Virat took this branding forward and opened a multi-cuisine restaurant named One8 commune with Nueva(owned by Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma).

Going by his personality and fashion sense, Kohli owns a stake in Wrogn, a clothing and accessories brand. He is one of the fittest athletes, carrying this image, he opened Chisel, a Bengaluru-based Gymnasium. Apart from these, Blue Tribe, a plant-based meat product company, Digit, and FC Goa are the other business ventures owned by Kohli.