MUMBAI: This was certainly not the script that the bean counters at Disney Star were hoping for. The ongoing T20 World Cup has witnessed two one-sided semi-final face-offs. While Pakistan kept up its end of the bargain (for advertisers at least) in the walloping it gave to New Zealand to book its place in Sunday’s finals, Team India failed to follow suite.
In setting up a final date with Pakistan, England simply destroyed India. For the record, Jos Buttler’s men beat Rohit Sharma’s Boys in Blue by 10 wickets with four overs to spare, chasing down a 169-run target set by India in 16 overs at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday.
Now that the hopes of the dream final have been dashed, what does it mean for the overall revenues from the tournament is the immediate question? As per industry sources, the overall LOSS the network will incur from the tournament would have been reduced by Rs 15-20 crores if India had faced arch-foes Pakistan.
As per information available with SportzPower, Rs 750 crores is the total ad sales revenue (linear and digital) that the network will make from a tournament where “advertising demand has remained tepid due to macroeconomic challenges”. This platform is in agreement with a report put out Wednesday by Sports9 Digital that “Star Sports could generate around Rs 450-475 crore from the T20 World Cup ad sales as against the revenue targets of Rs 820 crores. Hotstar had garnered around Rs 300 crores. The OTT platform had a World Cup revenue target of Rs 320 crores.”
