Limit to everything is very necessary, be it a personal habit or a professional skill. We all have examined waving flags of products during cricket matches, logos and punch lines on cricketer’s T-shirt. Moreover, cricketers also get endorsements, appear physically in advertisement and are paid in millions. This is where the limit should be placed, why? One ad, one or two endorsements are more than enough for any sportsperson.
In majority of countries this has been witnessed that Sportsperson is everything but a sportsperson. Plenty of endorsements, uncountable commercials and ongoing marketing activities give them enough money and allow them to stop performing in ground as they are getting enough money out of it. In general opinion of people a sportsperson must be paid for the core job i.e. sports not commercials. This should be understood by everyone that no matter basketball player, or a cricketer try to limit them to sports, no issues in allowing some marketing pay cheques. Making them their bread and butter, is a mistake for them for the country which they are representing.
Don’t give them enough options to earn, otherwise focus on core occupation will be lost in no time. This can be reconfirm from so many previous incidences, discussing incidences in detail will not be a feasible choice, but yes it can be easily reconfirmed how a sportsperson uses his/her fame (which is a blessing of sports they play) in order to get commercials and earn from other resources. Not pointing out negatively but, this needs to be understand if we won’t sketch a fine line between use and misuse; everyone will start to misuse. So much so, it’s for the legacy of cricket and any other sport to maintain the dignity of what he/she is doing. Don’t need to think about it so much, let’s discuss few names: Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Sydney Barnes, Zaheer Abbas and the list can go on and on. Reason for mentioning some name is they are legends and are still respected because of their attitude and loyalty towards their job (that was cricket). It doesn’t mean they never appeared in any commercial or haven’t received any endorsements but yes there was a clear limit at that time. Nowadays sportspersons are earning from other resources so well, that they are not performing in ground. After all cricket pants in Australia is there job like: x is an accountant earning from this job, y is an architect earning from there same must be the case of a cricketer he/she should earning only from there (other stuffs are secondary not primary job).
Cricket is being followed like a religion in so many regions, one must not disappoint his/her audience. A Sportsperson is a hero for everyone, respectful and dignified in my glance nobody loves the game they love the person who is playing the game, because he/she is making it look good.