June 16: A day after Reliance-controlled Viacom18 acquired the rights to digitally stream Indian Premier League matches in the Indian subcontinent for the seasons from 2023 to 2027, Nita Ambani, director, Reliance Industries Ltd, stated Wednesday that they had a “mission to bring IPL to cricket lovers all over the world”.
After winning these rights, Viacom18 will make IPL available to every Indian in every part of India, including the 60 million FreeDish homes which today are not able to access this popular content, the company said in a statement.
“Our mission is to take the joyful experience of IPL to cricket fans wherever they are – in every part of our country and around the world,” said Mrs Ambani.
Viacom18 is a joint venture of Reliance Industries-owned Network18, through its subsidiary TV18, Bodhi Tree Systems (a platform of Lupa Systems of James Murdoch and Uday Shankar) and Paramount Global.
“Cricket and IPL personify the best of sport and the best of India, which is why we are proud to be deepening our association with this great game and this wonderful league,” said Mrs Ambani.
Viacom18 paid Rs 50 crore per match for the Indian subcontinent streaming rights, Rs 33.24 crore for the Indian subcontinent special rights package, and Rs 1.45 crore for international rights in some regions. These include cricket-loving nations such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK. The digital rights for the subcontinent at Rs 23,758 crore have surpassed the TV rights acquired by Star for Rs 23,575 crore.
The IPL rights mark Viacom18’s first major entry into cricket. This, along with the rights of other events such as the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, National Basketball Association (NBA), La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A, Abu Dhabi T10, and top ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and Badminton World Federation (BWF), makes Viacom18 and its platforms one of the largest sporting destinations in the country.
What’s more, Viacom has state-of-the-art digital expertise to provide the best possible user experience to hundreds of millions of Indian and global consumers. The digital platforms utilise a combination of top-class content as well as digital prowess through big data analytics and predictive algorithms to offer contextualised and relevant content to each consumer, the company said in a statement.
This also provides an exceptional opportunity for advertisers to reach a larger, younger, more relevant and highly-engaged audience. The targeting opportunities because of Viacom18’s strategic partnership with Jio, which has brought about a mobile data revolution in India, will be unparalleled.
“The Jio DNA in Reliance gives them the foresight and the conviction to stay with very long-tail customer acquisition strategies,” Moneycontrol quoted Utkarsh Sinha, managing director, Bexley Advisors, a boutique investment bank firm, as having stated.
Streaming viewership for IPL has been growing with the league registering 421 million viewers last year as compared to 375 million and 325 million in 2020 and 2019 respectively.
The league’s digital viewership is expected to see the highest growth with analysts estimating it to touch 523 million in 2023.
