Former India captain Mithali Raj often says that her generation “walked so the next could run”.
In a recent interview, she looked back on the days when women’s cricket in India wasn’t a career but a compromise.
“We didn’t get match fees because there was hardly any money in the sport,” she recalled. “Even the associations didn’t have funds, so what could the players expect?”
The nostalgia is brutal. Long train rides in general compartments, no allowances, and a Rs 1,000 per match payment even after reaching the 2005 World Cup final.
India’s players celebrate with the trophy during the presentation ceremony after winning the ICC Women's World Cup 2025, at the DY Patil Stadium, in Navi Mumbai/ PTI
But 20 years later, the same team’s successors have rewritten the ledger, and the perhaps narrative as well.
India’s 2025 Women’s World Cup triumph was not just a sporting milestone; it was an economic one.
The ICC’s record-high Rs 122.5 crore prize pool saw Team India pocket Rs 39.55 crore, with the BCCI adding another Rs 51 crore in rewards.
Tata Motors threw in its soon-to-launch Sierra SUV for every player. Suddenly, women’s cricket has become an asset, and not a sentimental story.
The road to reform: when the BCCI changed the game
The foundation for this transformation was laid back in October 2022, when the BCCI, under then-president Roger Binny, announced equal match fees for men and women.
The new structure offered Rs 15 lakh for Tests, Rs 6 lakh for ODIs and Rs 3 lakh for T20Is.
This was more than symbolic. Before this reform, a Grade C male player earned Rs 1 crore annually, while a Grade C woman got just Rs 10 lakh. That institutional inequality shaped everything that followed, from sponsorship deals to public perception.
Today, equal pay on paper has translated into something tangible: confidence, bargaining power, and most crucially, visibility.
The post-WC boom: brands line up, finally
The 2025 World Cup victory acted as rocket fuel. Within days, the endorsement value of top players like Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Shafali Verma shot up between 50–100 per cent.
“Jemimah has moved from roughly Rs 60 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore per endorsement. Shafali has climbed from around Rs 40 lakh to Rs 1 crore+,” Karan Yadav, Chief Commercial Officer at JSW Sports, told PTI. “For players who had standout moments in the World Cup, the jump is even higher.”
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Baseline Ventures’ Tuhin Mishra echoed that optimism. “We’re seeing anywhere between 25–55 per cent increase for the top players. More importantly, brands are now seeing them as long-term partners, not just seasonal faces,” Mishra told PTI.
That shift is revolutionary.
Smriti Mandhana’s endorsement portfolio could make even Bollywood’s biggest stars look twice. Hyundai, Gulf Oil, SBI, PNB MetLife, Nike, Rexona, and UNICEF. Which once read like a list reserved for male cricketers, now symbolises a new market equilibrium where women represent not tokenism, but trust.
“Brands now view them as storytellers,” Yadav noted. “It’s no longer about gender, it’s about authenticity and reach. Jemimah’s following doubled to 3.3 million after the final. That's an influence you can’t ignore.”
Still unequal, but less so
Before the 2025 World Cup, male cricketers earned roughly 10 times more in brand deals. A Virat Kohli could command Rs 17 crore annually; a Smriti Mandhana barely touched Rs 1.75 crore.
That ratio, though still unfair, is improving. Smriti’s new valuation puts her around Rs 2 crore per deal, bringing the male-to-female endorsement disparity down to 6.5 times.
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Yet, structural disparities persist. The IPL’s Rs 48,390-crore media rights dwarfs the WPL’s Rs 951 crore, nearly 50 times smaller.
Rishabh Pant’s Rs 27-crore IPL contract makes Smriti’s Rs 3.4-crore WPL salary look like a stipend.
And while the IPL’s prize pool stands at Rs 20 crore, the WPL’s is just Rs 6 crore (a gap of over 230 per cent).
The visibility factor
The endorsement divide is more than a financial statistic. It defines who gets seen. When male cricketers dominate billboards and television screens, they dominate aspiration itself.
For decades, this lack of visibility kept women’s cricket on the fringes of India’s sporting imagination. Shafali Verma’s story, pretending to be a boy just to get a game, is not just folklore, it’s a reminder of how unequal access once stifled talent.
But with record-breaking World Cup viewership (446 million on JioHotstar) and the WPL’s rising popularity, that invisibility is fading. Girls watching Mandhana or Richa Ghosh on TV now see not a novelty, but a profession.
A market correction, long overdue
Brands, too, are waking up to an economic truth that the undervaluation of women’s cricket was never about demand, but visibility.
“The win has shifted them from ‘promising’ to ‘mainstream’,” said Yadav. “The definition of star power is changing. It’s about authenticity, purpose, and cultural relevance, not just stats.”
Analysts predict that women cricketers could soon command 20–25 per cent of total cricket endorsement value in India, up from just 5 per cent before the tournament. That’s not parity, but it’s progress.
The unfinished fight
Even as the champagne dries, the reality remains: true pay parity is still a work in progress. India’s women have equal match fees but unequal markets. The ceiling is cracking, not broken.
Still, the message from the 2025 World Cup is clear. When given equal opportunity and exposure, the women deliver equal performance, viewership, and value. The economics are catching up with the ethics.
As Mithali Raj’s generation fades and a new one led by Smriti Mandhana takes centre stage, the story of women’s cricket in India is no longer about struggle, but stake.
Because for the first time, the women aren’t just playing for pride. They’re finally playing for pay — and parity.