KOLKATA: Most of the Indian sports enthusiasts consider cricket as their religion. The upcoming season of the Indian Premier League will not only overwhelm the audience but will fill the void which has been due to the absence of major cricket tournaments in the last few months. There is no doubt that the official broadcaster Star Sports’ viewership will witness a rise during the league, but how Disney+Hotstar will benefit from it in terms of paid subscriptions is something to watch out for..

The media giant Walt Disney Company, which owns Hotstar after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, planned a grand entry of its streaming service Disney+ in March. Utilising the fandom for IPL, the company decided to integrate it with Hotstar to exploit the existing users. The pandemic had forced them to launch it in the absence of the cricket showbiz. However, despite all the odds, the platform has been able to garner 8.63 million subscribers as of 30 June. Now, most of the experts believe IPL is going to boost the number further.

SBICap Securities institutional equity research head Rajiv Sharma is of the opinion that all the content available at this moment is on
predictable lines despite having differentiated storytelling, but live sports are completely off the shell. “Earlier, IPL used to have at least some competition with other cricket tournaments before or after the event. The dearth of enough good events may lead to a 2x-3x increase in viewership and brand participation for IPL,” adds Sharma.

Sharma, who is highly optimistic about IPL’s impact on Disney+Hotstar subscriber base, says that the number of new subscribers coming because of IPL will be 50 per cent higher as compared to earlier years. Moreover, the retention rate after the event will be 20-30 per cent higher; thanks to the library of Disney+.

Elara Capital VP – research analyst (media) Karan Taurani states that the platform’s viewership will be negative this season. According to him, TV viewership will increase at a much higher rate as most of the people will be at home during the matches. He adds that he does not see any fresh subscribers coming to the platform for IPL specifically. 

Mirum India joint CEO Sanjay Mehta differs from Taurani’s view. Mehta opines that lockdown has accustomed viewers to consume content through OTT services. According to him, many people have now formed a habit of enjoying OTT services on Smart TVs or using devices like Chromecast to enjoy it on a large screen. Coupled with the starvation of premium cricket events or other
live sports, the new trends of consumption will benefit Disney+Hotstar subscription directly.

He says the focus should be on highlighting the fact that Disney+Hotstar gives access to a huge amount of other premium content along with IPL.

“Prima-facie, the decision to move IPL streaming to a premium account will see a decline in the overall digital audience. While I believe the core IPL fans will stick to Hotstar or the ones who don’t have a subscription may get onto the platform for the duration of the event. So we may see a spike for sure in short-term,” Isobar India COO Gopa Kumar comments. Notably, Jio has introduced new packs of Rs 499 monthly and Rs 799 quarterly plans giving access to Disney+Hotstar, which makes it clear that any Jio users will not enjoy IPL at zero cost this year.

As the majority of people will be at home, there might be a slight dip. However, owing to single TV per household phenomenon at
many places, you may see people logging in Disney+Hotstar to watch IPL,” he adds.

Kumar thinks the platform will come up with a marketing campaign for IPL very soon. According to him, the engagement story, the real-time response from the audience and interactive formats will be the key narrative of communication.