While Cricket continues to dominate the sports viewership in India with the IPL season having the most significant impact, other non-cricketing franchise-based events such as kabaddi, football, kho-kho etc are also witnessing traction.
In the first nine months of 2022, the sports viewership in India stood at 722 million and is estimated to surpass the 776 million viewership of the pre-Covid year of 2019, as per the report.
The digital revenue for sports is growing with a high double-digit CAGR of 22 per cent, said the joint report by industry body CII, KPMG and India Broadcasting Digital Foundation.
“The same is likely to be driven by organic growth in the number of OTT viewers in India, as well as an increase in consumption of sports on OTT, fuelled by the convenience of anywhere viewing,” the report said.
The advertisement revenues for sports properties on digital platforms are likely to be driven by “robust advertiser interest” in digital and higher fill rates compared to other content genres.
“The subscription revenues for sports are expected to grow on the back of an increase in OTT subscriptions, and a visible, concerted effort by OTT platforms to move towards an SVOD future (subscription video on demand),” it added.
However, despite the rapid growth of digital consumption in the last few years, the TV sports market is still expected to be more than twice the overall digital sports market “in the medium to long term”, according to the report.
TV, the conventional platform for sports consumption and monetisation, is “likely to remain highly relevant for the foreseeable future,” it added.
The overall TV sports market was estimated at Rs 7,050 crore in FY21.
“The same is expected to reach Rs 9,830 crore in FY26; growing at a steady CAGR of 7 per cent,” the report added.
According to the report, the TV ad revenue for sports growth is expected to be a premium to the overall TV market growth, given the advantage that sports as a genre enjoy over other genres.
“Subscription revenues for sports are likely to be driven by the increase in TV House Hold penetration, upselling of packs (including sports channels), and organic growth in Pay TV ARPUs,” it added.
According to the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) estimates, TV reached 210 million households in 2020, translating into 900 million individuals who watch TV.
Still, sports viewership on TV is underpenetrated in India, with significant headroom for growth. It contributes only 3 per cent of the total viewing on television as compared to developed countries such as the US where the number is closer to 10 per cent.
“We expect that with the continued encouraging performance of Indian cricketers and other athletes on the global stage, this gap will steadily reduce over the years to come,” the report said.
Cricket continues to dominate sports viewership and reach in India, with the IPL season being the largest impact sports property on TV.
The overall volume of live cricket content telecast in India stands at 16,217 hours till Week 44 of 2022. This has already crossed 15,506 hours in 2021.
“No other sport comes close in terms of both volume of content as well as the reach,” it said.
However, some non-cricketing leagues are seeing traction, it added.
Now the “viewership of other non-cricket sports has been steadily growing and stands at a reasonable 20 per cent in 2022” so far, the report said.
Some other multiple franchise-based sporting leagues — such as kabaddi, football, kho-kho etc — have also proliferated in India.
This is resulting in the availability of sporting content for almost around the year to the viewers, the report noted.
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