View: Investors everywhere want a piece of the cricket action, as value creation picks up runs
G20 summit, India is hosting another global gathering — the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, which has returned to India after 12 years. In this period, India has established itself as the commercial centre of the sport, with a huge fan base that consists of traditional cricket enthusiasts, new young fans and increasingly women.
This passion and conviction has drawn in global and Indian advertisers, even as 10-second ad spots are being priced at a 40% premium when compared to the 2019 World Cup.
The recent India-New Zealand match set a record of 43 million concurrent streams on Disney+ Hotstar, beating the previous record of 35 million from the earlier India-Pakistan match, highlighting growing engagement as the tournament builds momentum.
Another measure of India's commercial dominance of the sport is the share of earnings for BCCI from ICC, which at 38.5% for the 2024-2027 period, will be the highest for any association, and 5.5 times that of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the second highest. No other cricket association in any other country gets a double-digit percentage share.
The T20 format has created significant opportunities in the sports finance industry.
IPL, which started in 2008, has transformed the global cricket landscape and established the league as among the most successful leagues across all sport globally. Viewership for IPL set a record for the time, with the 2023 IPL final in May achieving 32 million concurrent views on JioCinema, with millions more watching it live on linear TV.
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