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2025: The year Indian sports saw chaos, comebacks, and breakthroughs
MUMBAI: Indian sports rode a dizzying wave of contradictions. Cricket’s coffers were overflowing, women’s sports were finally commanding respect and rupees, tech was turning stadiums into data factories, and yet India’s second most-watched league had no broadcaster, no start date, and clubs were haemorrhaging money. It was the schizophrenic reality of India’s sports economy in 2025.
The numbers were obscene. JioCinema had secured exclusive digital streaming rights for the IPL for $3.05 billion in a historic bid covering 2023 to 2027, making it one of the priciest sports properties globally. Following the Viacom18-Disney Star merger, JioHotstar controlled both TV and digital rights. The IPL 2025 final alone delivered 169 million TV viewers and 892 million digital views on JioHotstar.
But beneath the glittering viewership lay some red ink. Provisions for onerous sports contracts at JioStar jumped to Rs 25,760 crore in FY 2024-25, more than double the previous year’s Rs 12,319 crore. Translation: JioStar was expecting massive losses on its long-term sports rights deals.
The culprit? The Indian government’s 2025 ban on real-money gaming (RMG) apps vaporised roughly $840 million in annual cricket advertising. Fantasy sports platforms like Dream11 had been IPL’s sugar daddies. Broadcasters scrambled to plug the hole with traditional advertisers who simply wouldn’t pay Dream11 money.
The ICC’s 2024–27 India rights package, valued at around Rs 2.6 lakh crore with India contributing nearly 80 per cent of ICC’s revenue, proved similarly painful. JioStar inherited Disney Star’s commitment, but the deal’s commercial assumptions had collapsed. Currency depreciation hadn’t helped. The weakening rupee pushed JioStar’s effective liability on dollar-denominated ICC payments to roughly $3.3 billion. Despite speculation, both JioStar and ICC announced that the partnership would be respected and would continue, just as the year ended.
Despite JioStar’s aches and pains, IPL franchise economics remained robust. For the 2023–2027 cycle, IPL’s combined media rights sold for Rs 48,390 crore ($6.2 billion), translating to approximately Rs 9,678 crore per season. Teams received 45 per cent of media rights income (Rs 5,400 crore divided among 10 franchises), translating to Rs 540 crore per team annually.
Tata Group secured the title sponsorship for 2024–2028 for a record Rs 2,500 crore, the biggest-ever sponsorship deal in IPL history. IPL’s brand value skyrocketed by 13 per cent to $12 billion in 2024. The sponsorship ecosystem expanded dramatically in 2025, with Campa Cola securing co-presenting rights for nearly Rs 200 crore, while individual franchises locked in massive deals across sectors from real estate to renewable energy to hospitality.
Ad revenue for 2025 was in excess of Rs 4,500 crore. But those numbers were achieved before the RMG ban.
Cricket’s hierarchy was inverting. Cricket’s overall popularity in India had fallen from 75 per cent in 2019 to 70 per cent in 2025, according to Nielsen Fan Insights. But that decline masked a brutal internal reshuffling: Test cricket was haemorrhaging audiences while T20 and ODI formats were pulling record numbers.
The numbers were stark. Test cricket viewership, especially among younger audiences, had seen a noticeable decline. The five-day format’s duration didn’t fit modern attention spans. Scheduling conflicts with packed T20 leagues meant top players were perpetually absent. The BCCI’s financial engine ran on short-format fuel, with IPL alone contributingRs 5,761 crore, almost 60 per cent of all earnings in FY 2023–24.
Swiggy Instamart’s marketing head noted that while people believed Test match viewership was declining, Tests were actually being watched more, with the India-Australia Test series breaking multiple records. But context mattered: those record-breaking Tests featured Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Both stars had announced their Test retirement in May 2025, leaving a void. Sony charged Rs 2-3 lakh for a 10-second TV spot during the India-England Test series—far below T20 rates—with cautious advertiser interest.
Compare this to T20 and ODI formats, which were printing money. The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 recorded 540.3 crore views on JioHotstar. The final between India and New Zealand drew 230 million TV viewers and 53 billion minutes of watch-time, making it the second highest-rated ODI in TV history outside World Cup matches. The India-Pakistan league match generated over 26 billion minutes of watch-time on TV, surpassing the 2023 World Cup India-Pakistan clash.
The Women’s ODI World Cup final delivered even more astonishing numbers. India’s title win drew 185 million digital viewers on JioHotstar, matching the viewership of the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup final and 2023 Men’s ODI World Cup final. The tournament reached 446 million viewers on digital platforms in India, the highest ever for a women’s sporting tournament.
The sponsorship story mirrored viewership. T20 and ODI cricket commanded premium rates. Champions Trophy 2025 sponsors included Dream11, Pernod Ricard India, Beam Suntory, Kohler, Vodafone Idea, and LIC Housing Finance Limited. Apollo Tyres replaced Dream11 as India’s principal team sponsor from September 2025 after government restrictions on real-money gaming, but brands were still queuing up for limited-overs cricket exposure.
Test cricket survived on prestige and legacy, not commercial viability. ODI and T20 formats were where the money flowed. The format wars weren’t theoretical anymore—they were showing up in balance sheets, broadcaster provisions, and advertiser budgets.
If IPL was the crown prince, the Women’s Premier League was the scrappy underdog that actually delivered. WPL 2025 had attracted over 70 brands across 45 industry categories, up from 50 advertisers in the 2023 debut season. Jay Shah claimed TV viewership surged 150 per cent and digital grew 70 per cent year-on-year.
Team sponsorship revenue rose approximately 10 per cent in 2025, reflecting growing confidence in the league’s commercial potential. New commercial partnerships collectively valued at Rs 48 crore covered the 2026 and 2027 seasons, with ChatGPT and Kingfisher joining as Premier Partners.
The WPL’s media rights deal reportedly stood at Rs 951 crore for five years. That was pocket change compared to IPL, but the trajectory mattered. Brands like Tanishq, Kay Beauty, and LoveChild by Masaba entered cricket for the first time, drawn by the league’s ability to reach affluent, younger audiences without paying IPL rates.
India’s Women’s World Cup victory in November 2025 turbocharged the momentum. The ICC announced a prize pool of $13.88 million, with India taking home $4.48 million. From players earning Rs 1,000 per match in 2005 to this — the BCCI’s 2022 decision to implement pay parity with male cricketers was paying cultural and commercial dividends.
Meanwhile, Indian football was on life support. The ISL 2025-26 season hasn’t started. It may never start. In November 2025, the AIFF floated a tender for a new commercial partner. Zero bids came in. Not one.
The numbers explained why. The estimated cumulative investment and operating loss in Indian football, primarily the ISL, between 2014 and 2025: Rs 5,000 crore. Football Sports Development Ltd (FSDL), the league’s commercial partner since inception, absorbed most of these losses. Despite generating substantial broadcast revenue of approximately Rs 550 crore in FY24, FSDL reported losses of Rs 14.33 crore that year, with annual losses averaging more than Rs 300 crore over a decade.
The tender demanded a guaranteed Rs 37.5 crore annual payment to AIFF, gave the federation veto power over league operations, and offered the commercial partner only one seat on a six-member board. Market reaction: universal rejection.
AIFF planned to spend Rs 50.48 crore in five months while having no secured league revenue, no broadcaster, and a projected Rs 25.88 crore deficit. The federation’s actual usable bank balance? Rs 19.89 crore. FIFA project funds and fixed deposits couldn’t be touched for league operations.
Clubs, players, and coaches were stuck in limbo. Salaries were frozen. Sponsorships were impossible without a schedule. The Indian national team failed to qualify for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, meaning no competitive football until November 2027 at the earliest.
ISL clubs proposed a radical restructuring: they wanted to own the league themselves with perpetual operational rights, relegating AIFF to a regulatory role. The proposal suggested paying AIFF Rs 10 crore annually from 2026-27 onwards for grassroots development, but zero franchise fees and zero league rights payments for the 2025-26 transitional season.
Away from boardroom bloodbaths, technology was quietly transforming how Indian sports operated. Stadiums hosting IPL 2025, like Narendra Modi Stadium and Eden Gardens, integrated IoT for smart crowd management, environmental controls, and connected infrastructure.
India’s sports technology market reached USD 442.4 million in 2024 and was forecast to reach USD 1,479.2 million by 2033, at a CAGR of 13.32 per cent during 2025-2033. The Fantasy Sports industry drove much of this growth, though the RMG ban threw a wrench in monetization models.
There were 2,007 sports tech ventures in India, including industry leaders like Dream Sports, Dream11, MPL, Games24x7, and Hudl, with 181 startups having secured funding and three achieving unicorn status.
Wearables, AI-powered coaching tools, and biomechanics analysis became standard. The Catapult vector pro athlete monitor provided real-time data on player movement, workload, and fitness, using GPS trackers and sensors to monitor acceleration, sprinting speeds, and workload distribution.
FanCode, the digital platform owned by Dream Sports, carved out a niche in non-cricket sports. It renewed its F1 streaming deal through 2028 and also held MotoGP and DTM rights. With subscriptions starting at Rs 49 per race weekend, it democratized access to premium motorsports content that previously cost thousands of rupees.
While cricket devoured attention and football bled, India’s sports ecosystem mutated into something more complex, more chaotic, and weirdly more promising. Each sport attracted its own sponsor ecosystem, from traditional categories to unexpected new entrants.
The Pro Kabaddi League wasn’t just surviving—it was thriving. Season 12 drew 201 million viewers, maintaining its position as India’s second most-watched sporting league. Star Sports’ 74 per cent stake in Mashal Sports proved prescient. The league grew viewership from 184 million in Season 8 to a record 225 million in Season 10, leveraging multilingual broadcasting in English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu across 12 cities.
PKL’s revenue model was simple: predictable television audiences, accessible ticket prices, and brands willing to pay sub-IPL rates for mass reach. Iranian star Mohammadreza Shadloui became the first player to cross Rs 2 crore at auction for three consecutive seasons. The league provided 5-6 players with Rs 20 lakh+ salaries annually and dozens more in the Rs 10-20 lakh range—enough to make kabaddi a viable full-time career.
Sponsors included Tata Motors (title sponsor), Asian Paints, Dream11, and Thumbs Up, among others. The league attracted FMCG, automotive, fintech, and consumer durables brands seeking mass reach without IPL-level investment. Unlike ISL, PKL never over-promised.
The Premier Badminton League had shut down after five seasons. Broadcasters and advertisers couldn’t monetize beyond initial curiosity. The fundamental problem: badminton’s packed international calendar meant top players were perpetually absent, and without stars, viewership collapsed.
The league had moments—P.V. Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, and Carolina Marín competing for city franchises delivered 40 million viewers in 2017-18. The absence of Chinese players robbed it of credibility. By 2020, commercial reality caught up. In 2025, the Badminton Association of India announced plans to revive PBL in 2026 with a new format, but no broadcaster, no dates, and no clarity on commercial viability existed.
The lesson: India’s appetite for badminton content was real, but not enough to sustain a professional league without structural changes to the international calendar and guaranteed star participation.
The Prime Volleyball League was building a model that worked. Season 4 in 2025 expanded to 10 teams with Sony Pictures Networks as broadcaster. Players earning Rs 20 lakh+ were common, with 5-6 athletes clearing that threshold, creating financial stability that didn’t exist pre-2022.
PVL’s CEO Joy Bhattacharjya reported over 200,000 YouTube subscribers and growing television viewership. The league hosted the inaugural edition of India’s participation in the FIVB Club World Championships in 2023, bringing global volleyball to Indian soil. Hosting the entire Season 4 in Hyderabad’s Gachibowli Indoor Stadium allowed efficient resource deployment while building a dedicated volleyball hub.
Sponsors included JSW Cement (title sponsor), Gatorade, and various regional brands. The sponsorship model focusedon sports nutrition, cement and construction, and consumer electronics—brands looking for targeted audiences at lower costs than cricket.
The big caveat: India’s national volleyball teams failed to qualify for the 2025 World Championships, ranked 70th globally for men. The professional league was thriving, but the national program was struggling—a disconnect that could either inspire grassroots growth or expose the league as a commercial construct divorced from sporting excellence.
The Basketball Federation of India’s ambitious Vision 2030 roadmap produced tangible infrastructure—the Basketball High Performance Centre in Bengaluru, the launch of the INBL Pro U25 league in February 2025, and NBA partnerships bringing Jr. NBA 3×3 tournaments to 10 Indian cities.
But results remained elusive. India’s 2025 FIBA Asia Cup campaign ended winless. The men’s team lost to Jordan 91-84 in overtime despite leading with less than a minute in regulation. The U16 Asia Cup and World University Games delivered similar disappointments. The 3×3 format showed promise—India re
Commercial interest was embryonic. The INBL Pro U25 league featured six franchises but struggled for broadcast and sponsorship visibility. NBA India’s grassroots efforts attracted sponsors like Spalding, Gatorade, and various sportswear brands, but no broadcaster saw commercial potential in domestic basketball yet. The BFI invited tender bids for both 3×3 and 5×5 National Star Basketball Leagues, hoping franchise investment would follow NBA India’s grassroots efforts. The disconnect: excellent infrastructure and administrative intent, but no pathway to elite international competitiveness and limited commercial sustainability.
India had roughly 200 operational pickleball courts in early 2024. By late 2025, that number surged past 1,200, with 3-4 new courts added weekly in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad. Active players grew nearly 300 per cent in three years to approximately 60,000, with projections of 1 million players by 2028.
Calling 2025 a “breakthrough year” for pickleball in India, Hemal Jain, Chief Architect – Pickleball Growth at Global Sports Pickleball, said the sport’s ecosystem has expanded rapidly across tournaments, sponsorships, equipment, coaching, and venue memberships.
“The overall pickleball ecosystem has grown by more than 200%,” Jain said. “Leagues like the Global Sports Pro & Challenger League and high-stakes tournaments such as the Grand Slam are creating real pathways for players. We are building coaching standards, refereeing systems, talent development, school programmes and analytics so that young athletes can see a viable career in the sport”.
Emphasising pickleball’s mass appeal, Jain also said the sport is positioned not as a rival to cricket or football, but as an everyday activity
“We don’t want to compete with cricket or football. Instead, we want to create a sport that people across skill levels and age groups can actually play every day. That’s pickleball’s biggest strength”.
“Cricket is India’s emotion, but pickleball has become India’s habit. It’s quick, social, and accessible. You don’t need a big ground or fancy equipment, just a court and a few players”.
“At GSP, we’re shaping pickleball not just as a competitive sport but also as everyday entertainment. Through content, community engagement, leagues, and school programmes, we want people to feel connected as participants, not just spectators. That’s how a sport finds its place in people’s hearts”.
The economics were compelling. A pickleball court cost Rs 4 lakh to set up versus Rs 15 lakh for badminton. In cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru, businesses were recovering investment in three months. Startups were cashing in: GoRally raised Rs 6.46 crore; Goodland Pickleball secured Rs 80 lakh on Shark Tank India at a Rs 13 crore valuation.
Two professional leagues launched in 2025: the PWR DUPR India League in January and the World Pickleball League running January 24 to February 2 at Cricket Club of India, Mumbai. WPBL secured approximately $10 million in sponsorships from Barclays Private Bank, Apollo, Skullcandy, and EKA. Actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu invested in WPBL, lending celebrity credibility.
The sponsor ecosystem was luxury-focused: private banks, premium healthcare, high-end audio equipment, and lifestyle brands. Pickleball was attracting affluent consumers aged 35-55, creating a different sponsor profile than cricket or kabaddi.
The All India Pickleball Association partnered with KheloMore Sports, committing Rs 5 crore to build 100+ courts, though execution remained pending. The global pickleball market was projected to grow from Rs 16,388 crore in 2023 to Rs 68,138 crore by 2033 at 15.3 per cent CAGR. India was positioning itself as the sport’s Asian hub before the market saturated.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, India did have a functioning tennis league—and it had just completed its seventh season, making it one of only four Indian sports leagues to reach this milestone. The Tennis Premier League ranDecember 9–14, 2025 at Gujarat University Tennis Stadium in Ahmedabad, marking its first edition outside Maharashtra.
TPL secured substantial broadcasting muscle. Sony Sports Network broadcasted Season 7 on Sony Sports Ten 5 and Ten 5 HD channels nationwide, while JioHotstar signed a three-year streaming partnership starting 2025, making TPL the only tennis league in India with both television and OTT distribution.
The league’s breakthrough: attracting Top 50 ranked international players for the first time, including Luciano Darderi (World No. 26), Arthur Rinderknech (World No. 28), Corentin Moutet (World No. 31), Alexandre Muller (World No. 43), and Damir Džumhur (World No. 58), alongside Rohan Bopanna, former doubles World No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam champion.
Eight franchises competed: Rajasthan Rangers, Gurgaon Grand Slammers, Gujarat Panthers, Hyderabad Strikers, GS Delhi Aces, Yash Mumbai Eagles, Chennai Smashers, and SG Pipers Bengaluru. The unique 25-point format kept matches fast-paced and television-friendly. Celebrity co-owners including Rakul Preet Singh and Sonali Bendre Behl provided Bollywood glamour.
GS Delhi Aces clinched their maiden title with a dominant 51-36 win over Yash Mumbai Eagles in the grand finale. Hyderabad Strikers remained the most successful franchise with three titles.
TPL’s commercial model was modest but sustainable. Sponsors included premium automotive brands, luxury watches, and hospitality partners—brands targeting affluent audiences who played and watched tennis. Unlike the shuttered Premier Badminton League, TPL avoided over-promising and built gradu
The economic reality: TPL wasn’t generating massive broadcast revenues, but it covered costs, provided pla
The Global Chess League 2025, a Tech Mahindra and FIDE joint initiative, positioned India as the global chess hub. Season 3 ran December 14–23 at Mumbai’s Royal Opera House with a $1 million prize fund, six franchise teams, and superstars including World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, and Hou Yifan.
The league partnered with AWS for AI-powered smart broadcasting, delivering real-time game analysis, multilingual commentary, and interactive fan zones. Broadcasting on JioHotstar, Sky Sports, and Chess.com’s platforms brought elite chess to mainstream Indian audiences.
Sponsors included Tech Mahindra (title sponsor), AWS (technology partner), and various ed-tech and gaming platforms. Chess attracted sponsors from technology, education, and digital sectors—brands wanting to associate with intelligence and strategic thinking.
The economic impact was real. Top GCL players earned substantial salaries, creating financial stability that didn’t exist for non-elite chess professionals. Young Indian players now had a professional pathway beyond prize money from open tournaments. Chess academies were booming as kids aspired to franchise contracts.
India’s online chess audience was the world’s largest—platforms saw peak concurrent viewership during Indian prime time, making the country critical for sponsors and broadcasters. The franchise format was being studied by other countries, signaling GCL’s model might export globally.
Indian athletics in 2025 celebrated Neeraj Chopra hitting 90m in javelin at the Doha Diamond League, but suffered persistent doping scandals. Olympian Shivpal Singh, former Asian Games medalist Seema Punia, and multiple others tested positive, leaving India ranked second globally for ineligible athletes.
The Athletics Federation of India hosted the inaugural Indian Open World Athletics Bronze Level Continental Tour in Bhubaneswar in August. India bid for the 2031 World Athletics Championships with Ahmedabad as the proposed venue. The government’s Khelo Bharat Niti 2025 allocated USD 438.55 million for sports in 2025-26, a 10 per cent increase.
But there was no athletics league. No broadcaster saw commercial potential in track and field beyond the Olympics and major championships. Proposed Indian Athletics League announced in 2014 remained on hold. Sponsors were limited to sportswear brands (Nike, Adidas, Puma) sponsoring individual athletes. Without a franchise structure, athletics remained government-funded with limited private investment and zero broadcasting revenue outside event hosting.
The good news was that Amdavad, India was formally ratified as the host of the Centenary Commonwealth Games in 2030, marking a historic moment for the Commonwealth Sport Movement. Commonwealth Sport also confirmed that 15–17 sports would feature at Amdavad 2030. The Amdavad 2030 team worked closely with Commonwealth Sport and the International Federation community to shape a dynamic and exciting sport programme with strong local resonance and global appeal.
PwC estimated India’s overall entertainment and media industry would expand from $32.2 billion in 2024 to $47.2 billion by 2029, growing at nearly twice the global average. India’s sports economy, estimated at $5 billion, was expected to reach almost $8 billion by 2029, driven by rising media rights valuations, digital fan engagement, and live experiences.
The union cabinet’s approval of Khelo Bharat Niti 2025 (National Sports Policy – 2025) on July 1, 2025, marked a pivotal move towards positioning India as a global sports leader, with aspirations for the 2036 Olympic Games. The policy emphasized public-
Government sports budget allocation had grown steadily, though from a low base. Infrastructure investments under Khelo India were creating grassroots pathways. But whether this translated to a viable commercial ecosystem beyond cricket remained to be seen.
Indian sports in 2025 was a tale of extremes. Cricket was too big to fail but possibly too expensive to sustain at current valuations. Women’s sports were experiencing genuine breakthrough momentum. Football was in an existential crisis. Kabaddi had figured out sustainable economics. Volleyball and chess were building professional pathways. Pickleball was the pandemic winner turning into an investment magnet. Basketball had infrastructure but no results. Badminton and tennis existed in commercial limbo. Athletics remained government-
The India spectator sports market stood at USD 1.77 billion in 2025 and was forecast to reach USD 2.41 billion in 2030, expanding at a 6.41 per cent CAGR, with growth stemming from digital streaming consolidation, rising disposable income, and government-backed infrastructure.
The fundamentals were strong: 655 million sports fans, 900 million millennials and Gen Z consumers, rising disposable incomes, smartphone penetration, and a government finally prioritizing sports infrastructure. But the business models were inconsistent. Broadcasters were bleeding on cricket. Football was imploding. The advertising market was restructuring post-RMG ban. Some leagues worked. Most didn’t. A few might.
The question wasn’t whether Indian sports would grow. It was which sports would survive, which business models would work, and whether the current stakeholders would adapt fast enough to avoid becoming casualties of their own ambition.
Note: The images in this article are AI-generated and used solely for representational purposes.