Indian advertisers may end contracts with star cricketers after Oz series embarrassment

Mumbai, Jan 26(ANI): Leading Indian advertisers are set to end their endorsement contracts with cricketers, as Australia continues to maintain its stranglehold on the Team India in the Adelaide Test.

Advertising and marketing guru Suhel Seth admitted that the brand value of Indian cricketers has plummeted this summer.

"A lot of advertisers have said, 'We don't want to use cricketers any more as our brand endorsers' because of their widespread unpopularity in today's India. No one wants to advertise with losers and the Indian cricket team is now identified more with losing than winning. It is also identified with fractured relationships, which no brands want to identify with," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Seth, as saying.

"Cricketers as a category have brought upon themselves a great deal of shame and a huge decline in their brand value. This decline is not going to be arrested so soon," he added.

Cricket reportedly raked in over a quarter of India's total advertising revenue of 2.41 billion dollars in 2011.

Indian captain M. S. Dhoni and masterblaster Sachin Tendulkar are the highest revenue-earners from endorsements.

Dhoni had signed a two-year endorsement contract with a management firm worth 39.7 million dollars in 2010, surpassing the 35.8 million dollar deal that had made Tendulkar the world's richest cricketer.

India is staring at an eighth consecutive defeat in Tests away from home after both Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke smashed double tons in the Adelaide Test. (ANI)