Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, a 23-year-old Indian badminton player commonly, secured seventh spot on the Forbes list of highest-earning female athletes released earlier this week.
Sindhu comes from a sporting background with both her parents playing volleyball at national level, but she took up badminton aged six.
Despite badminton’s semi-professional status in most parts of the world, a major part of Sindhu’s earnings comes from off the court, as the prize money in badminton is still not on par with some of the other sports. PV Sindhu’s on-court winnings last year totalled $500,000. Surprisingly, Sindhu bring in an extra $8million in sponsorship in sport-mad India, which works out as a weekly income of about $163,000.
As stated by the Forbes magazine, Sindhu is one of the players with being a brand- ambassador for many leading franchises. “The 23-year-old has a robust sponsor roster with Bridgestone, Gatorade, Nokia, Panasonic, Reckitt Benckiser and a half-dozen other brands,” Forbes wrote.
Sindhu is also the brand ambassador for the Central Reserve Police Force and Vizag Steel.
