KOLKATA: The pandemic has brought live sports to a standstill across the world for a brief period. Despite the re-start of major sporting events, most tournaments continued to be played in empty stadiums.
The broadcasters relied on the use of augmented reality, virtual reality to sustain the viewer’s attention. But, the tectonic shift in the way a game is being played impacted big brands along with franchises, players, athletes, federations who depend on sports for better reach and higher recall. Many had to tweak their advertising strategies to adapt to the changing times.
Amid all this, came the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). One of the biggest sporting extravaganzas returned to the home-country after more than a year. But, as the game was beginning to catch momentum, the ferocious second wave of the pandemic compelled the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) to suspend it mid-way, leaving the advertisers in a quandary.
In India, larger spends on sports revolve around Cricket given the fandom of the game across the country. After an unusual year, the entire industry was looking forward to 2021 with big-ticket tournaments in pipeline. But with the IPL 2021 suspended indefinitely, the eyes are now on the upcoming tournaments in the sports calendar.
At this critical juncture, Indiantelevision.com is organising a virtual panel discussion to deliberate on ‘Brands and live sports in the pandemic times’ on 21 May (Friday) at 3 pm. The roundtable is part of the Television Boardroom series.
The esteemed panel includes speakers from brands and advertising agencies: Havas Media Group India CEO Mohit Joshi, DDB Mudra Group Integrated Media country head, managing partner Rajmohan Sundaram, upGrad India CEO, Arjun Mohan and Mobile Premier League (MPL) corporate development, investors relation SVP Joe Wadakethalakal. The panel discussion will be moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO & editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari.
The virtual session will begin at 3:00 pm on Friday and will be live-streamed on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
MUMBAI: It's not without reason that cricket is considered a religion in India – nothing can whip up mass fervour like this sport. And what could have proved this better than the opening match of Vivo IPL 2021, which clocked, believe it or not, a colossal 10 billion minutes of viewership on Star India network.
Thus it’s a no brainer that ad spots for the cricket league are selling like hot cakes at up to Rs 14-15 lakh for 10 seconds. At last count, Star TV had roped in 18 sponsors. With the IPL now in full swing, life is good for the brands who have signed onboard, pandemic or no pandemic. The league has taken over people’s minds and hearts off the virus as the official national pastime… well, at least while the matches are on!
The IPL also brings with it an assortment of marvellous ads every year, with brands trying to up one another’s creative game and exploit the full potential of this incredibly engaging event.
This year too has not disappointed ad-watchers.
Here’s a list of brands who got it right and found ways to create and curate content that cut through the clutter:
JustDial’s JDMart: India ka B2B marketplace
Just Dial has dialled up its entertainment quotient, making full use of its brand ambassador, Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh’s skillsets. The actor, who is notorious for his repertoire of quirky looks and accents, brings on his talent to promote the company’s b2b marketplace JD Mart. Taking on various avatars and accents of a dealer, manufacturer and supplier of different goods he talks about how the app has made his life easy by enabling him to reach a wider audience and sell his products without any hassle.
Dream11 : ‘Team hai toh mazaa hai’
E-sports app Dream11 has also upped its IPL game this time around with a series of films released in the last two weeks. Featuring an array of Vivo IPL cricketers including MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya and Shreyas Iyer the adverts are rather interesting to watch. Each of the films showcases a couple or more of the professionals in endearing gully cricket scenarios. The cricketers show off their acting chops, in various situations playing cricket in their neighbourhood- on the terrace, on the streets, in pitch darkness on deserted alleys and even in a water-logged compound. Old popular film jingles play in the background while the team gets around minor hurdles to their game. The message behind the fun-filled creatives: Team hai toh mazaa hai.
Cred spills celebrity secrets:
One player in the IPL brandwagon which has come out stronger and better than last year is the credit payment app Cred, which has been hogging a lot of attention for its campaigns. Previously, while the brand did get noticed for its distinctive ‘not everyone gets it’ ads featuring veteran celebs it did not win much favour with the audience, as this time. They got off on the right foot with their creative featuring ex-cricketer Rahul Dravid. The ad showing the mild-mannered cricketer losing his cool in the midst of Bengaluru traffic jam and proclaiming himself to ‘Indiranagar ka gunda’ got off to roaring start from the word go! It has sparked numerous memes and spinoffs and had everyone from Deepika Padukone to Virat Kohli tweeting about it.
Post this, the brand has released two more campaigns one after another, featuring actor Jackie Shroff and Kumar Sanu, the popular playback singer from the 90s . The films depict Shroff, in no way known for his dancing skills, taking Zumba lessons while Sanu tries his hand at selling insurance, albeit musically.
Mobile Premier League (MPL): ‘Hai Akal Khelo MPL’
Cashing in on the IPL fever, skill-gaming platform, Mobile Premier League (MPL), has also launched its latest campaign around the game. With the tagline ‘Hai Akal Khelo MPL’, the campaign features a humanoid brain as the protagonist, driving in the point that anyone with ‘akal’ (brains) can play the game.
The three films released are a humorous play on the words of popular Hindi language idioms like ‘Akal badi ya bhains’, ‘Akal ke dushman’, and ‘Dimaag ghaas charne gaya hai’. The films push the central idea that one can create their fantasy team on the e-sports platform with basic know-how of cricket during the ongoing T20 tournament. MPL has roped in veteran actor Vijay Raaz for the films’ voice-overs.
Since the campaign first went live with the start of the IPL, fantasy cricket app has already seen one million new app installs.
As the marquee T20 tournament progresses, we cannot wait to see more brands get creative with their messaging.
MUMBAI: Cashing in on the IPL fever, skill-gaming platform, Mobile Premier League (MPL) has launched its latest campaign on TV and digital media platforms. Revolving around the theme ‘Hai Akal, Khelo MPL’, the adverts feature a humanoid brain as the protagonist, driving in the message that anyone with ‘akal’ (brains) can play the game.
There are a total of seven films in the campaign, of which three are already live and the rest will be released as the IPL progresses. The three films released are a humorous play on the words of popular Hindi language idioms like ‘Akal badi ya bhains’, ‘Akal ke dushman’, and ‘Dimaag ghaas charne gaya hai’. The films push the central idea that one can create their fantasy team on the e-sports platform with basic know-how of cricket during the ongoing T20 tournament. MPL has roped in veteran actor Vijay Raaz for the films’ voice-overs.
The campaign has been conceptualised by The Womb and brought to life by Early Man Films and was directed by Abhinav Pratiman. “This IPL, we decided to go back to the basics of fantasy cricket- which is to make the best possible team by using your knowledge of the game and your thinking skills. By giving the human brain its own manifestation as a protagonist and by using some very well-known Hindi sayings that we can all relate to,” MPL senior vice president – growth and marketing Abhishek Madhavan said.
“Passion and love for the game of cricket can at best make someone a great fan of the game. But to play the game either in real life or in the form of fantasy one needs skill. Skill in the form of strong analytical skills and strategic abilities to create the best teams game after game. Our attempt was to bring this alive by creating the brain itself as a device. The campaign uses popular idioms associated with the brain to generate popular appeal,” The Womb founding partner Navin Talreja added.
MUMBAI: Esports and skill gaming platform Mobile Premier League (MPL) has come onboard as the principal sponsor of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), renewing its partnership with the IPL team for a period of two years. The partnership will see MPL continue to be featured on the RCB kit for the upcoming edition of the T20 tournament this year, as well as the 2022 season.
"With our brand ambassador Virat Kohli leading a strong RCB side, we are confident that the team will have a good season this year too," MPL senior vice president – growth and marketing Abhishek Madhavan said in a statement. MPL began its association with RCB in the league’s 2020 edition, played in the UAE.
Royal Challengers Bangalore vice president & head Rajesh V Menon said, “We are delighted to have Mobile Premier League as one of our key jersey partners again for this season and the next. MPL and RCB share a common ethos of being at the forefront of creating cutting edge mobile gaming experiences and engaging content platforms respectively and this partnership combines the power of both to further create heightened levels of engagement for our fans.”
Thanks to the huge fan following that most IPL teams command, associating with the cash-rich league and the T20 teams has returned good dividends for start-ups in the past. Many brands become easily recognisable as well, with the T20 tournament’s record-breaking viewership numbers.
NEW DELHI: Martech start-up HockeyCurve Technology Labs has won the account of Mobile Premier League (MPL), the fantasy gaming platform with more than 60 million users.
During the engagement, HockeyCurve will provide end-to-end dynamic creative implementation to deliver high performance digital campaigns for all the MPL gaming verticals. This will also include programmatic ad serving, creative analytics and automating all mainline campaigns into high performance digital sub-campaigns.
HockeyCurve co-founder and CEO Aditya Jagtap said, "We are really excited to have MPL on board. They have 50+ different games on their platform – which is a perfect recipe for building a true creative automation model for MPL. After deploying SportsPlex for broadcasters like Hotstar, Sony, ESPN, we are really kicked about expanding the product into the fantasy and gaming domain".
As a part of their recently launched IPL campaign, HockeyCurve deployed first of its kind real-time key player statistic based ads for MPL’s fantasy league. These ads were an instant hit with 3X increase in user engagement compared to standard banner ads and uplifted the programmatic advertising efficacy by almost two times compared to direct buy campaigns.
"With HockeyCurve ad-server, we got a three-in-one solution that offers personalised creatives, dynamic optimisation and granular analytics, which is super scalable for our growth team. This custom setup ensures our product offerings get seamlessly extended into our advertising across our digital media campaigns. We look forward to bringing more such automation campaigns in the coming months to enthral our users,” said Arpit Awasthi, MPL’s head of digital marketing.
Founded in 2016, HockeyCurve Technology Labs offers proprietary digital marketing products for programmatic media buying, dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) and other custom automation services to e-commerce, sports and OTT brands including Flipkart, Hotstar, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, Sony, Zee5, Voot, Oyo, Grab and others.
NEW DELHI: E-sports platform Mobile Premier League (MPL) has recently appointed YAAP to help them take their digital presence to the next level. This will include the conceptualisation and development of communication across social media to strengthen the brand's presence online.
MPL SVP growth and marketing Abhishek Madhavan said, “With millions of followers across our social media platforms, we have partnered with YAAP to offer our followers a variety of engaging and informative content as we look to scale our social media presence even further. We are excited about having YAAP on board and look forward to working with them.”
YAAP partner Manan Kapur said, “We are really excited to partner with MPL on this journey. Having observed the growth of the gaming industry over the years and the pioneering work that MPL has done, we’re really looking forward to working with a team that shares the same passion for great work as us. We’re looking forward to doing some great work soon.”
NEW DELHI: The sad demise of legendary Argentina football player and manager Diego Maradona has left his fans heartbroken. Popularly known as 'El Dios' or 'The God', Maradona in his international career with Argentina earned 91 caps and scored 34 goals. He is best known for the ‘Hand of God’ goal, and leading his country to victory in the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
At the peak of his career in the late ‘80s, Maradona also endorsed some of the top brands like Puma and Coca Cola. He breathed his last on Wednesday evening following a cardiac arrest. A number of brands, clubs, and celebs took to social media to pay their condolences on the passing of the maestro.
You've left us too soon but you'll be etched forever in our hearts. Thank you for gifting your prowess and genius to the world of football and mesmerizing us with your magic every time you came on the field. Rest in power, legend.
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.#GreenplyPlywood#RIPMaradona#GodOfFootballpic.twitter.com/cHoezsblKw
We are deeply saddened by the loss of an all-time great of the game, Diego Maradona. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this tough time.#RIPMaradona#Maradonapic.twitter.com/xGXtKXaMOF
Diego Maradona was a maestro of football, who enjoyed global popularity. Throughout his career, he gave us some of the best sporting moments on the football field. His untimely demise has saddened us all. May his soul rest in peace.
Mobile Premier League, India’s largest esports and mobile gaming platform, today announced Rs 10 crore in revenue for 10 of its game developer partners in just a year, from November 2019 to October 2020.
Game developers and studios publish their games on MPL under revenue-sharing agreements with the gaming platform, where developers can start monetising their games via MPL’s cash tournaments and contests.
One of these 10 developers, Hyderabad-based Yesgnome publishes its popular Cricket Clash game on MPL. Cricket Clash is one of the most-played games on MPL, especially during the recent lockdown, garnering over 41 million gameplays between April and October 2020. Other developers receiving the payout include Qunami, which publishes the Quiz game on MPL, and BornMonkie, which publishes Auto Raja.
MPL has onboarded over 70 games on its app since its inception in 2018 and has partnered with established as well as independent game developers from across India, opening up a new revenue stream for them to monetise their games. With over 6 crore users in India, game developers find a ready audience for their games on MPL’s Android and iOS apps.
“MPL’s unique platform model offers game developers the chance to monetise right from day 1 of publishing. We are privileged to have partnered with talented game developers from all over the country and are glad that our platform helped them monetise their games. We at MPL recognise the tremendous potential that the Indian game developer ecosystem has and thus, have announced a Rs 37-crore fund that game developers can use to build their offerings,” said Shubh Malhotra, Co-founder, Mobile Premier League.
The Rs 37-crore fund announced by MPL is earmarked for Indian game developers and studios to develop their games for a national and global audience. MPL has also expanded internationally, with over 3.5 million users in Indonesia, thus taking Indian-made games to the world.
The fund is open to all Indian game developers and studios and they can apply for it by reaching out to MPL. The gaming platform will soon launch a single-window online console for game developers to apply for the fund as well as to submit their games to MPL for screening and publishing.
“We have released AutoRaja, Bubble Shooter, Block Puzzle on MPL. Thanks to the unique monetisation model on MPL, we are making around Rs 5-8 Lakh every month from these games. MPL has a great team that takes care of the launch and event strategies to boost game revenue which is always great for developers,” said VK Samhith, CEO, BornMonkie.
“During the lockdown, we have seen a significant increase in our revenues on our games on MPL. The timing of the IPL also helped us in adding a few more titles which resulted in maintaining our revenue at a steady pace. We are excited about the next few months as we plan to release new titles, which we think will help to further improve overall run rate,” said Imtiaz Hussain, COO, Yesgnome.
NEW DELHI: Cricket is the by far the best media vehicle for any brand if it intends to connect with masses at a pan-India level. The game cuts across all socio-economic boundaries, age-groups, geogrpahies and reaches to 196 million households with television sets. The brand can further amplify its reach by connecting with its audiences on the mobile screens. Be it IPL, T-20 leagues, one day matches or ICC World Cups, all of them have been able to deliver great results for the brands.
Currently, we are in the first week of IPL season 13 and going by reports, more than 200 million people tuned into watch the game on day one. The tournament has created history and is already delivering reach for brands. While the bandwagon of the teams, BCCL, and the broadcaster has a large number of traditional players, an equal number of digital first new age brands are also on the roster.
The count of the latter is growing year-on-year. These brands are spending big money around IPL to get more downloads, website visits, referals, impact, and what not. Spokespersons of many of these brands have mentioned that the viewership and reach of IPL is increasing year-on-year and the tournament helps them increase their brand recall and reach. IPL, which is also known as the advertising festival of the Asian subcontinent pushes the brand saliecy to the next level. It is important for these brands to strengthen their community and engage with newer audiences that sample its products or services
Brands across edtech, fintech, food delivery, fantasy sports, financial accounting, and healthcare are advertising across IPL season 13.
Here are some of the campaigns released by the digital first brands that are running during IPL.
Dream11
The fantasy app brand has taken the title sponsorship for the tournament. It has released a campaign #YeApnaGameHai that urges people to download the app, sample the game and continue with it. The brand leads the fantasy sports category with over 90 per cent market share.
Policybazaar
The fintech brand has launched its new television campaign “AapKiSideHai” that features its brand ambassador, Akshay Kumar highlighting the brand's promise of embracing a holistic customer-centric approach while helping to bridge the insurance protection gap in India. The new ad series also highlights the brands unparalleled support to customers, while providing them with the ease of comparing and buying term and health plans online with guidance at each and every step.
Swiggy
The online food discovery brand is urging people to order more during the IPL times and is offering discounts around it. The brand is running a strong media plan and is known for coming up with interesting ads during the IPL.
PhonePe
The Bangalore-based digital payments company is running TVCs featuring Bollywood stars Aamir Khan and Alia Bhatt. It has released five 20-second ads that tied together made one complete story: The guide to PhonePe. The ads tell us the story of Alia Bhatt who’s at the police station for her brother Tyson who’s behind bars because of an ambiguous road mishap. Inspector Desai (Khan) instructs her to pay a fine and she uses the PhonePe app to do so; the conversation from Desai’s instruction to Bhatt’s action is the sum of the five ads.
Khatabook
Khatabook, a business app that helps MSMEs streamline business transactions online has released it ad on the IPL. The ad features M.S Dhoni in different attires from Sharmile Sharmaji to Techno Tawde in the ads and showcasing distinct features of the app.
OkCredit
The brand has partnered with Delhi Capitals and running TVCs with the tagline – ‘Digital India ka Digital Bahi Khata’. It is a free-to-use accounting and ledger app that helps small businesses in India keep track of their digital transactions. The brand aims to engage with small, local brands and entrepreneurs for its expansion.
Byju’s
Byju’s is pushing its new offering – Byju’s Classes – to parents across the country through their IPL campaign spearheaded by its long term brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan. The ad highlights the key features of the product and Khan plays the role of a teacher to a group of parents and discusses the common worries they have regarding their children’s after-school tutoring needs. The campaign aims at redefining the concept of tuitions in an otherwise fragmented after-school tutoring market.
Great Learning
This IPL Great Learning released its first ever multi-film ad campaign featuring brand ambassador, Virat Kohli consisting a series of films titled, ‘Power Ahead – Jo Seekhta Hai Wahi Aage Badhta Hai’. The ad focuses on the importance of lifelong learning, and showcases how upskilling is a necessary step for students and professionals to move ahead in their careers.
MyTeam11
Their IPL campaign “India Ki Apni Fantasy App” aims to promoting the message of “Indian Brand for Indian People”. It aims to bring more people to commuinty and sample the game. The ads emphasize on taking pride in playing one’s favorite fantasy cricket game on a homegrown application which promises to bring the users closer to the experience of the actual matches of the league. The films witness several cricket experts recommending and creating their own teams in the MyTeam11 app.
Jio
Mukesh Ambani owned fiber brand Jio released its latest ad in the Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan series. This time it features Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh with several cricketers such as Virat Kohli, AB De Villers, among others. The Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan tune first arrived on the IPL advertising scene in 2017.
White Hat Jr
The edtech app that teaches coding to children is in vogue. People have been talking about it on the internet and the brand was recently acquired by Byju's for 300 million dollars. The online learning brand is running a TVC campaign across IPL to increase awareness and create brand saliency.
MediBuddy
The digital healthcare platform has launched its first TV campaign – ‘Aapka Health Buddy’ to communicate that MediBuddy is a friend that everyone can trust to address any healthcare need – 24*7, for the entire family. The TVC encapsulates the lives of families and seeks to impart the important message of not neglecting one’s health.
My11Circle
The fantasy sports app endorsed by former Indian cricketer and BCCI president Sourav Ganguly is asking people to come on the platform. The campaign is aimed at increasing the size of the community and getting more and more people to sample the product.
Amazon
The online shopping portal has started its festive season campaign with IPL. Their campaign #HarPalFashionable is focused towards pushing people to start their festive shopping from the platform. Over the years, the brands has been clocking massive GMVs during this time. It will be interesting to see how people reach to this years festive season.
Myntra
One of the biggest online fashion brands of India has joined the IPL bandwagon for the first time and partnered with Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Chennai Super Kings.
NEW DELHI: Ten years ago, if someone told you that you could create your own virtual sports team and win money, you would have laughed off the idea. However, a handful of techies believed in the possibility. They have not only turned it into a business but have developed an entire new category called online fantasy sports (OFS). What seemed a laughable proposition a decade ago is now a passion for many consumers.
The OFS category seems to be having a great run in India; there were just 10 players in 2016 today that have ballooned to 150. And there’s optimism all around especially in terms of advertising, funding, hiring, consumer sampling, and what not.
There is no doubt that the front end of this revolution is Dream11’s founder Harsh Jain who saw the huge possibilities and opportunities in the western world and decided to implement the same in India. Once the brand tasted success several other players also emerged in the market such as MPL, My11Circle, MyTeam11, BalleBaazi, FanFight, Cricplay, Gamezy, Howzat and others.
A Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS)/KPMG report released earlier this year revealed that the OFS sector has been registering rapid growth for the past four years. The user base increased from just 2 million in 2016 to 90 million in 2019. Operator revenue almost trebled from Rs 924 crore in 2018-2019 to Rs 2,470 crore in 2019-2020. The report also estimated that the industry clocked contest entry amounts (CEA) of over Rs 6,000 crore in FY19, which more than doubled to about Rs 16,500 crore in FY20.
Even as the lockdown led to mainstream live sports dying, the OFS apps started tracking smaller leagues all over the world, and fans too followed. But not with the same frenzy or at the same scale as cricket. Now, with the return of the IPL, the action is becoming red hot. Some of the OFS platforms have opted for team and tournament level sponsorships while many others have simply opted for spot buys during the matches.
The IPL attraction
Most of the big guns have been training their sights on consumers, spraying them with ads promising to give them an opportunity to win big money in the hope that they will engage more or sign up to try their luck.
For instance, the baton holder of the category, Dream11 took the title sponsorship of IPL for a whopping Rs 222 crore. A 2019 report by the Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG) and KPMG suggests that Dream11 dominates 90 per cent of the domestic fantasy sports market. It is also associated with several teams and has already released its IPL campaign.
The Virat Kohli-endorsed MPL, another big player that offers fantasy cricket for its audiences has associated with the Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore as a sponsor. The online gaming brand is saluting the spirit of Covid2019 warriors and telling their stories to people.
Mobile Premier League senior VP – growth and marketing Abhishek Madhavan defines IPL as the biggest television property in India. “The way fantasy sports companies are heavily involved in the IPL this year will surely help grow the market. We want to grow our brand even more among the masses and give MPL a mass appeal and recognition. It is also a great way for us to take our unique features and offers to existing as well as new users.”
Delhi-based e-sports platform BalleBaazi has also got into the game with #DumHaiTohYahanKhel and its BalleBaazi Fantasy Festival that offers users a chance to get heavy discounts on its reward stores and play more leagues.
MyTeam11 has unleashed a campaign ‘India Ki Apni Fantasy App’ for the IPL season to promote the message of ‘Indian Brand for Indian People.’ It consists of a series of videos wherein cricket experts can be seen recommending and creating their own teams in the MyTeam11 app. And it also features MyTeam11’s brand ambassador Virender Sehwag along with other cricket experts like Jatin Sapru, Sanjana Ganeshan, Mayanti Langer, Suhail Chandhok.
My11Circle promoter Games24x7, which is endorsed by Sourav Ganguly, is going the whole hog on promotion. The company’s director – brand & marketing strategy Avik Das Kanungo explains that cricket remains the highest participated sports format in fantasy space in India. Thus, IPL comes out as the strongest event simply because of the viewership and interest it generates over 60 days.
He adds: “My11Circle has bought spots during matches both on Star Sports on television as well as on Hotstar. We plan to effectively utilise these inventories to put across the right communication to the cricket-loving the audience that helps us establish our brand proposition of 'Play With Champions'. In that regard, we have shot multiple interesting commercials to bring alive the fun and thrill of our core proposition, and we hope it will resonate with all fantasy lovers across India.”
Why Advertise
Playerzpot, an OFS platform established in 2015 avers that an IPL partnership’s effectiveness is not measured over a single season, rather the association is computed in terms of the long term impact and recall it has on viewers and users. “Each fantasy brand is trying to lure new players, bring back the old ones, and retain both in the longer run. A marquee tournament like IPL brings that possibility of moving a notch higher for the whole year. For us, our work the calendar starts with IPL,” says Playerzpot co-founder Mitesh Gangar.
Fantasy Akhada founder Amit Purohit echoes this saying that the platforms particularly use cricket properties to build brand awareness and to get top of the mind recall with fantasy sports players. RoI is measured by the improvement in user acquisition and engagement per user before, during, and after the IPL.
He explains that cricket in India is a religion and most sports fans believe they know the game well. “If there is a seamless way to leverage this knowledge of cricket and skill of selecting a team to beat your friends or make money, most fans would latch on to this opportunity.”
Estimates are that the only 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the fantasy app players are paying to be on them. The platforms would like that paid subscriber base to increase; hence the marketing blitzkrieg around a high reach property like the IPL even though it is super expensive.
The OFS sector is having a beneficial rub off: the FIFS-KPMG report says that over 55 per cent of fantasy sports players said that they ended up consuming more real-life sports on the telly. That can be called a great symbiotic relationship.
