New Delhi, July 13: Virat Kohli might be a hot property in the advertising industry, but MS Dhoni, India's most successful captain, still has the highest commercial air-time.

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According to a recent data collected by AdEx India, MS Dhoni tops the list of 10 sports stars and Team India's limited-overs' captain has surpassed his Test counterpart in terms of the screen time.

As per data, a lot of factors might be working in Dhoni's favour to put him ahead of others and eventually increase his popularity. Interestingly, Dhoni's position was overtaken by India's Run Machine Virat Kohli in 2015.

Commercial airtime is calculated based on the amount of time a star appears on television per second. There is not an iota of confusion that Dhoni endorses more brands than Kohli, who charges double of what Dhoni commands.

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According to an ad-maker who has worked with both players, "The current fee for signing Virat is Rs 3 crore per day, whereas Dhoni charges half of Kohli, which is about Rs 1.5 crore. This makes Dhoni more attractive and an accessible option for brands."

This clearly puts an end to speculations regarding the reason behind this phenomenon.

As per another survey which was conducted to calculate the advertisement share of Bollywood and TV stars along with sports persons, Kohli has slipped from last year's 3rd rank to 19th this year.

Dhoni, meanwhile, remained stable at 6th spot in the list. Kohli has been known to be quite specific when it comes to endorsing brands.

Experts feel that even 'brand Dhoni' has taken a beating post his retirement from Test cricket. But they feel 'brand Dhoni' will get a massive boost post release of his biopic 'MS Dhoni: The Untold Story', slated for release in September.

OneIndia News