After the grand success of IPL 2020, the fantasy gaming industry is booming again with the ongoing India V/S Australia Tour Series. The series consists of 3 ODIs, 3 T20s, and 4 Tests. After eight long months, Team India is poised to make a comeback to the 22 yards as an entire unit. With MPL winning the Kit Sponsorship for Team India, the popularity of fantasy gaming is spreading immensely. In addition, fantasy cricket apps have a number of new offers lined up, new features in their gameplay and have completely overhauled their marketing budgets.
Fantasy cricket apps primarily accord cricket fans the opportunity to test their knowledge. The process involves the participants forming their own teams and earning points based on the overall performance of the selected team combination. The past two years have witnessed fantasy gaming platforms attracting high-end investors such as Sequoia India, Stead view Capital, Go-Ventures, and Tencent. High-profile cricketers like Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Sourav Ganguly are the brand ambassadors of some of these companies. Fantasy cricket apps are designed with the motive to entertain and bring across the joy that one derives by playing online cricket.
The statistics released in a recent study, carried out by the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS) in collaboration with KPMG, show that presently, there are about 100 million fantasy sports users in India. The growth of the Indian Online Fantasy Sports industry has been phenomenal and continues to grow exponentially, having registered a 212% CAGR in the user base between 2016-19. As per the report, around 74% of the users play fantasy league games at least one to three times a week. Around 20% of the active users on these platforms are paid users while around 30-40% play fantasy games on more than one platform. The industry clocked in a gross revenue of over Rs. 2,400 crores for the FY20, increasing from Rs 920 crore in FY19.
Here are a few of the fantasy gaming platforms you must give a try:-
1. Fantasy Akhada – A young & dynamic organization that has a vision of exponentially enhancing the level of sports engagement in India. Fantasy Akhada offers the lowest entry fee contests where users can win lakhs. In a short span of 9 months and after delighting over 1 lakh customers on the platform, Fantasy Akhada is now ready for the next phase of growth in India’s rapidly evolving Fantasy Sports Industry. Recently, Fantasy Akhada signed up with Mr. Harsha Bhogle and onboarded him as an investor and brand ambassador.
2. Dream11 – One of the renowned and the only fantasy gaming unicorn in India as of now, Dream11 is also the title sponsor of the IPL this year – it made a total investment of Rs 222 crores. The gaming platform has around 80 million players forming its current user base and controls a lion’s share in the market touching 80%. Dream11 is known for running daily contests which enables players to make (or even lose) lots of money on them. It even accords users the opportunity to participate in polls and earn bonus money through referrals. MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma are together the face of the company.
3. MyTeam11 – One of the fastest growing fantasy gaming platforms, MyTeam11 has Virender Sehwag and Danny Morrison as its brand ambassador. With a user base of over 12 million players and still counting, MyTeam11 recently launched a brand-new campaign – India kiApni Fantasy App – which promotes playing fantasy cricket game on native applications, motivating people to opt for these over the foreign-bred apps. During the recent Caribbean Premier League, which reached its conclusion some time back, MyTeam11 was one of the popular platforms.
4. SIXNWICKET– it is a gaming portal which offers you multiple prospects of playing cricket, your favourite game. You can win real cash by playing this game of cricket. You can exhibit your skills and compete with other players in this real-time multiplayer game zone. You can win real cash by defeating other players whom you are competing with. This is absolutely skills’ oriented game where you need to be tactful while using your skills. It’s time to get ready and participate in this first ever multi-player game.
5. Paytm First Games (PFG) – Paytm First Games (PFG) took in the sporting legend and iconic Indian cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, as its brand ambassador. However, a day after the announcement broke the news that this app is being removed from the Play Store by Google. This development brought in more publicity than expected for the app and raised awareness about it, the purpose for which Sachin Tendulkar was actually taken on board. Paytm First Game is a new entry in the field of fantasy games and is anticipated to create major ripples as it has the backing of PayTM’s marketing model, which itself is among the fastest upscaling and top 10 brands in India. As per the media reports, the word goes that PFG will be investing around Rs 300 crore in fantasy sports and other online gaming events this financial year.
