It’s a no brainer, but it’s still a fact: cricket drives Indian viewership, in general, and a surge in Disney+Hotstar app download in particular.

Hotstar monthly active users or MAUs saw 96 percent growth in October 2020 after the start of the previous IPL competition and were more than double pre-tournament levels through December, a new research by S&P Global market Intelligence stated.

With back-to-back IPL and T20 World Cup tournaments, Indian cricket fans are in for more than two months of non-stop, top-tier matches between September 19 and November 14, 2021.

IPL 2021 was scheduled for April 9 to May 30 but was paused on May 2 after COVID-19 cases increased among players and support staff. The remaining 31 matches, including qualifiers and the final, are scheduled to kick off in the United Arab Emirates on September 19 and end on October 15. The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 is scheduled from October 17- November 14.

“The Walt Disney Co.-owned Star India Private Ltd. holds the broadcasting rights to both tournaments on traditional and digital platforms and is poised to see a significant uptick in sign-ups for its over-the-top service, Disney+ Hotstar,” The insight from S&P Global stated.

Quoting Broadcast Audience Research Council India audience data, the S&P Global research stated that 44 percent of TV households tuned in to IPL 2020 live matches.

“Cricket is primarily on Star India and Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt. Ltd., which own top tournament rights across all their platforms, and, thus, make matches available on the Disney+ Hotstar and SonyLIV OTT services,” the analysis said.

However, it also referred to a recent entrant into the sports arena: petroleum-to-retail-to-telecom-to-media conglomerate Reliance Industries-backed Viacom18 Media, which recently acquired La Liga Spanish and Italian Serie A soccer rights and featured the content via its general entertainment and music channels like MTV and on its OTT platform VOOT.

Viacom18 Media, a 51:49 joint venture between Reliance and American media giant Viacom CBS, operates the music channel MTV and digital platform VOOT in India.

Indianbroadcastingworld.com learns from industry sources that MTV’s acquisition of international soccer rights for the India region, to begin with, is a baby step towards a full-fledged entry into sports broadcasting. Viacom18 has been testing the sporting waters for some time now by getting rights for smaller sporting events (like the Legend series). These events were aired either on the digital platform or on general entertainment and music channels.

Incidentally, the IPL rights come up for renewal in 2022. Disney-owned Star India is the current rights holder after it had forked out a then mind-boggling US$ 2.5 billion for a five-year deal.

Previously Reliance Jio — the telecom arm of RIL that is presently the Indian market leader in terms of subscribers in the wireless/mobile category — had bid for Indian cricket rights, but had backed out seeing the high cost of the broadcast rights.