The latest Bollywood release ‘MS Dhoni: The Untold Story’ was extensively promoted across all platforms as the movie produced by Fox Star Studios. Along with the prominent production house, the movie was co-produced by Arun Pandey. Arun, a businessman, put in his money in the movie. During the promotions of the movie, Arun filled in when star captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni couldn’t make it.
The obvious question which comes to mind is, who is Arun Pandey and why would he produce a biopic on Dhoni. As it happens, Arun and Dhoni are close friends, business partners and by the former’s own admission, family. The ties between the two go a long way back, so much so that Arun is in a huge way responsible for the creation of ‘Brand Dhoni’.
An aspiring cricketer himself, Arun who hails from Varanasi, used to play Ranji tournaments with Dhoni. After realising that he doesn’t have a promising future in cricket, he moved to business and found Rhiti Sports, a player management agency in 2007. The same year his company acquired rights to negotiate deals on behalf of Mahi. Rhiti also had Suresh Raina as their client.
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However, in 2015, Suresh Raina ended his partnership with Rhiti Sports because he didn’t want to be ‘Number 2’ in a ‘new company’ (hinting that no. 1 was Dhoni). After the ‘conflict of interest’, Raina moved out but Dhoni stayed.
A 2013 report in TOI highlighted that not only did Rhiti Sports handle Dhoni’s business, the cricketer also had shares in the company. Out of the 2,00,000 shares; Dhoni reportedly owned 30,000. However, Arun had earlier said that Mahi is not a shareholder in the firm and the shares have been sold to promoters (but there was no record of the same).
After joining hands with Arun and letting him strike deals on his behalf, Dhoni’s brand value has only grown bigger with each day. As of March 2016, Dhoni was reported to charge Rs 1.5 crore per day from a brand he endorses. Brands have two contract options – to hire endorser for a year or to hire endorser on per day basis.
This says a lot about how well the duo of Arun and Dhoni has played off the field. Just like he put his tears and sweat in building the brand, Arun placed his money on a movie which spoke about the journey of the captain; a tale which will definitely resonate with viewers and in the long run, add to his brand value.
