Shane Warne: Inside Shane Warne’s many lucrative sponsorships and financial deals

Shane Warne was a marketing magnate and companies big and small immediately caught on. And his status was summed up by one lucrative phone call.

Shane Warne’s status as a global cricketing juggernaut was summed up by the day he made $1.25 million with one phone call.

The spin king was playing a short Test series in Sri Lanka in late 1999 when he took a call from his UK-based agent, Michael Cohen.

There was a bidding war going on for Warne’s services in English county cricket, and Hampshire had come in with a head-spinning hammer blow.

“Michael called with an offer of 150,000 pounds from Hampshire, plus car, house and flights. Then there was a radio deal. Six shows at 500 pounds a pop,” Warne wrote in his 2018 autobiography, No Spin.

Shane Warne with Hampshire teammates Dimitri Mascarenhas and Nic Pothas Picture: Getty Images

“There was an agreement with The Times for 10 columns at 12,000 pounds each and a 200,000 pound book deal to tell my story so far with Hodder and Stoughtoun. $500,000 pounds in one phone call!”

Given the exchange rate at the time, it equated to well over $1 million Australian and at the halfway point of his international career, illustrated the extraordinary power of Warne Inc.

It’s estimated Warne amassed a personal wealth in excess of $50 million all stemming from his reputation as the Michael Jordan of cricket.

In the early 2000s Warne could be hired for a rate of $65,000 a day and a Sheikh from the United Arab Emirates rented the Test superstar out to teach his son how to bowl leg-spin.

The Sheikh gifted Warne a gold watch which Warne thought was so expensive it would pay for a new Ferrari.

He went straight to a jeweler on the edge of Melbourne for a valuation only to be told it was worth about $85.

Warne was filthy but it must have been one of only a few times in his life that Warne was short-changed.

News Corp revealed this week that Warne’s last ambition before he died tragically from a heart attack aged 52 was to coach the England cricket team – a job worth upwards of $1 million Australian.

But to paint a picture of just how much Warne was worth in retirement as a broadcaster and corporate titan, his agent James Erskine confirmed he would have had to take a substantial pay cut to do it.

“He told me he would like to coach England,” Erskine said.

“Warnie would never have applied for the job. It would be a case of England tapping him on the shoulder to see whether he was interested, and he was.

“He was not currently in a position to coach England with all his current contracts in place. He would not have been a replacement now. It would have been later in his career. We had just renewed his contract with Fox.

“Had he started coaching a major national team the drop in income would have been huge. But he was certainly interested.’’

ENDORSEMENT DEALS

When paying tribute to Shane Warne during the week, Fox Footy’s AFL 360 host Gerard Whateley confessed he even had a pair of Nike earrings still sitting in the top draw of his desk.

Warne was a marketing magnate and companies both big and small immediately caught onto the fact he was just about the No.1 athlete in Australia to have as the face of just about any brand.

Just months after News Corp revealed on the 1998 Indian tour that emergency baked bean rations had been sent to the sub-continent to save a starved Warnie – SPC signed him up on a five-figure deal.

While most celebrities – and men in general – are sensitive about their hairline and favour the anonymous approach, Warne was always shamelessly open about his treatment from Advanced Hair.

He embraced the technology and the concept of being out in front of it and he was proud of the work he did as the face of Advanced Hair to make hair plants “cool.”

Shane Warne was not afraid to be front and centre for Advanced Hair Stuido. Picture: AAP Image/Julian Smith

“I think I have helped so it is cool to do it rather than that stigma of being known as the guy who has had his hair done,” Warne told News Corp in 2020.

In Warne, global sportswear giants Nike found the classical player they were looking for.

Edgy, risk taker, rebellious – Warnie was their quintessential signing – an athlete you couldn’t look away from in case you missed something.

Warne’s contract with Nike was understood to be $1 million over five years.

Warne even met Nike’s other international superstar Michael Jordan in the mid-1990s – and Michael Clarke told News Corp this week that the ‘King’ looked up to the NBA icon.

In 1998, Warne was allegedly paid $200,000 by the pharmaceutical company which manufactured Nicorette to be the face of its nicotine replacement product after it had been reported the avid smoker had been using their products in a bid to break his 40-cigarette-a-day habit.

But when he was snapped on a cricket tour of the West Indies sneaking a durry, he was dumped.

A Nicorette nicotine gum advertisement ad featuring cricketer Shane Warne.

Warne endorsed countless brands over the years – featuring in a television commercial for Pepsi alongside Darren Lehmann which was massive in Pakistan and India.

Thousands of kids across the world would have had the Shane Warne spin grip balls as kids, which had numbers printed on them to guide young fingers on how to correctly grip different deliveries.

VB, McDonalds, Leggos, Just Jeans on an $80,000 deal, Oakley on a deal worth $200,000 and eBay also hired Warne over the years to take their brands to the people.

When Warne appeared on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! In 2016 – a venture which also earned him $2 million – he revealed there were only ever two products he refused to endorse.

“Erectile dysfunction,” he said when asked about product celebrity branding on the show.

“Condoms, I’ve been asked to do those. I said no to both of them.”

CHARITY

When Shane Warne auctioned off his baggy green cap and raised $1 million for the 2020 bushfire appeal, it encapsulated both his astonishing pulling power and his life-changing generosity.

Warne was a man with a soft heart who helped countless people who were suffering.

The last donation from his charity was a staggering $300,000 cheque to Will Pucovski’s mind coach Emma Murray, whose son suffered an accident that left him a quadriplegic.

At the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020, Warne turned his gin business in Western Australia into a factory to produce hand sanitiser and provided it to hospitals at cost price only.

Ball of The Century victim, Mike Gatting knew Warne well and was sorry his friend didn’t get more recognition during his playing career for his philanthropic endeavours.

“Other people won’t understand what he did off the field in regards to the terminally ill,” Gatting told News Corp.

“He’d go and see them through his foundation and he gave so much money to people who were less well off than he was.

“He was always trying to help people be inspired. We all know what he did on the field, he was magnificent, but the off the field stuff I don’t think people have really bothered looking into it. But they’ll be surprised what they find.”

Warne announced live on air during Fox Cricket’s broadcast of the 2020 Sydney Test that he would be donating his baggy green to raise money for the bushfire cause.

It sparked an online bidding frenzy, as two bidders went head-to-head as the price surged passed $700,000 to $860,000 in just 30 minutes one night.

In the final minute of the auction, the price surged over the magic million dollar mark to a final figure of $1,007,500.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia bought Shane Warne’s baggy green. Picture: Alex Coppel.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia acquired the cap with a donation to the Australian Red Cross and took the famous green headware – worn famously through 145 Test matches – on a national tour around Australia and raised hundreds of thousands more.

It was an achievement for which Warne was proud and humble.

“When CommBank then took it around Australia to raise even more money, it was such a proud moment for me and my family to be able to raise money for other families who have suffered such loss,” Warne said.

“The cap now finds a home next to the [cap of the] greatest cricketer that’s ever played the game, Sir Donald Bradman, who has a wonderful museum in Bowral.”

Warne’s personal charity closed in 2016 amid allegations about its financial and reporting practices, but had raised $7.8 million in the 12 years it operated.

It was cleared of any unlawful conduct the following year.

News Corp reported at the time the charity was first investigated about the experience of Kristopher Hinz, who suffers cerebral palsy and is indebted to the support of Warne and his charity.

The Shane Warne Foundation sponsored his treatment at a gym designed for children with disabilities for six years.

“He stayed at the foundation for hours longer than he was scheduled to, and bowled to me and the others until his managers dragged him away,” he wrote in a letter to The Herald Sun.

“Warne came into my life at a time when I stood on the sidelines of the cricket field jealously, wishing to participate and cursing my disability.”

Warne was just a naturally generous person – even paying a six figure bill for England cricket players to take helicopters to play golf during the COVID-hit Ashes summer.

Originally published as Shane Warne: Inside Shane Warne’s many lucrative sponsorships and financial deals