Jio Cinema the big winner this World Cup

The final between Argentina and France on December 18 attracted 11 million concurrent users on Jio Cinema.

“The final match had a peak concurrency of 1.1 crore. This is a massive number considering the fact India was not part of the tournament,” said an industry executive.

He said about 100 million users visited Jio Cinema during the period it streamed the World Cup between November 20 and December 18. “The watch time for the Fifa WC was 30 minutes per match,” the executive added. With the tournament over, Jio Cinema is gearing up to stream the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches next year.

“The possibilities of growing the IPL digital viewership are massive, considering the fact that the TV and digital rights are with different players,” the executive said. DisneyStar has the linear TV rights for the IPL for the Indian subcontinent.

Viacom18 Sports said 32 million viewers tuned in to Jio Cinema for the final. It also stated that India became one of the highest digital viewership markets for the Fifa World Cup with over 110 million viewers.

‘Ad Revenue of Over ₹300 crore’

The tournament clocked a watch time of 40 billion minutes across the Sports18 TV channel and JioCinema, both part of the Reliance-owned group. Jio Cinema was also the most downloaded free app on iOS and Android throughout the tournament.

Viacom18 Sports clocked ad revenue of over Rs 300 crore from the tournament, said people with knowledge of the matter. With integrated TV+digital sponsorship deals, it roped in over 50 brands from multiple categories as advertisers.

“We promised to give consumers easy access to the world-class presentation of the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022, and on the back of that, the tournament became the most-watched global sports event on digital where India has not participated,” said Viacom18 Sports CEO Anil Jayaraj. “This demonstrates the power of digital and the preference viewers and fans have shown to consume their favourite events.”

As per the most recent TV viewership data for the tournament, 58 matches up to the first two quarter-finals had a cumulative reach of 47.4 million viewers. The average reach per match was 6.3 million viewers. Croatia versus Brazil was the match of the tournament at that point with the most reach at 18.2 million viewers. The tournament was aired on the Sports 18 SD and HD channels.

Kerala, Assam and West Bengal were the best-performing markets for the World Cup, said MediaCom South Asia CEO Navin Khemka. He also noted that the 8 pm matches got better ratings at the group stage while the midnight matches started delivering numbers only at the round of 16 stage.

“So, I would say Fifa delivered extremely well in pockets in India where the interest levels are high in football,” Khemka said. “The matches were high quality and very competitive. Brands which have invested with FIFA globally on the ground have got a very good exposure in India like Adidas and Vivo with dominant on-ground exposure.”

Sports management company ITW Universe cofounder Bhairav Shanth said the viewership numbers for the Fifa World Cup final on JioCinema are testament to the point that the future of sport viewing in India is digital.

“These are numbers that rival the biggest e-sports tournaments, suggesting a dovetailing of the trends in digital content and its consumption when it comes to sport, and I think Jio Cinema and Sports 18 have done a tremendous job with both the viewing experience and the content,” he said. “With the IPL being the next big milestone, I am looking forward to a paradigm shift in both scale and experience of digital sports viewership in India.”