The Indian Premier League performs a good job of capturing India’s shifting entertainment viewership patterns. The highly popular cricket league, the second-most valuable sports league on earth after the NFL in America, has been a focal point for broadcasters ever since it began in 2008.
IPL has been a major contributor to the lion’s share of the annual profits of sports channels, first on Sony Entertainment Television and afterwards on Star Sports. Yet, times are a-changing.
Everything you need to know about IPL
The number of people watching IPL on TV has steadily decreased because of the growth of the internet, particularly after the Covid-19 outbreak. The IPL’s viewership declined from 460 million TV viewers in 2019 to 400 million in 2020, 267 million in 2021, and 220 million last year after reaching a peak in 2019. It might decrease even more in 2023.
Two distinct media networks are broadcasting and streaming the current season of the IPL, one stealing users and advertising revenue from the other. The newest player in the sports streaming market, JioCinema, has signed up more than 500 advertisers and anticipates 523 million people to watch the IPL online.
They include both established brands that are gradually shifting their ad expenditures from TV to digital, such as Castrol, TVS, Oreo, UltraTech Cement, etc., as well as brands that have only ever operated online, such as Dream11, JioMart, PhonePe, Amazon, Rapido, RuPay, etc. JioCinema’s expected to seriously damage Star Sports’ ad sales with a roster like that.
According to a report by Media Partners Asia, JioCinema will account for nearly 60% of all IPL 2023 advertising sales, and for the first time in the tournament’s history, digital advertising revenue will overtake TV advertising revenue. Analysts predict that JioCinema’s ad sales would surpass $330-350 million while Star Sports’ ad sales might be in the range of $200-220 million.
In addition to streaming, the IPL has given rise to an expanding and successful fantasy game sector. According to a Redseer analysis, fantasy sports are predicted to generate between 2,900 and 3,100 crores in gross income during the 2023 IPL, with Tier II+ cities in India accounting for close to two-thirds of transacting consumers.
