Shane Warne strikes gold with Rajasthan Royals stake
Former Rajasthan Royals skipper Shane Warne has struck gold after being assured 0.75% stake for every year of IPL that he played for the franchise after he came out of retirement in 2008. Against all odds, Warne had led an underdog Rajasthan side to IPL glory in the inaugural edition in 2008.
Shane Warne will be considering himself as a recipient of some kind of a jackpot as he has been assured 0.75% stake for every year that he played for the Rajasthan Royals franchise since he came out of retirement in 2008. Warne was also paid a head-start of USD 657,000 as soon as he signed up for the franchise and now the stakes are so high that Warne will be having a fun time visiting the bank in the coming days.
“Part of my deal because I had retired from international cricket and I came out [of retirement], they asked me to be the captain, coach and run a cricket team the way I wanted to run it; I was the one-stop-shop,” Warne told the Herald Sun.
Warne was also the mentor of the side where he nurtured young talents like Yusuf Pathan and Shane Watson and also all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who Warne termed as "rockstar". The Royals had names like Graeme Smith, Mohammad Kaif, etc. that one would not really associate with big-hitting but as a team, they punched above their weight to bring the inaugural IPL title to the city.
“We were the underdogs, we were the least favoured, no one gave us a chance to win. It was the first-ever year of the IPL, of franchise cricket where owners bought players and players went into auctions,” Warne stated.
Warne is hopeful that the Rajsthan-based franchise whose value now is around USD 200 million, might get doubled in the coming couple of years, which also means that Warne could see himself earning 12 million dollars from the stake.
“Three per cent of USD 400 million is all right,” he cheekily concluded.