Why fantasy sports in India is gaining fast popularity in the Indian T20 League?
Indian T20 League is India's most popular league, promoting the most popular game of the Indian sub-continent. This tournament captures the biggest broadcasting value and we have seen immense growth in the last few years.
Growth of fantasy platforms through Indian T20 League
Fantasy platforms accepted the fact that the Indian T20 League played a vital role to boost their revenue. Faboom has seen the growth of 240 percent and their revenue jumped by over 5x just because of the Indian T20 League. The company clocked $1 million in revenue last year. The biggest fantasy company in India, Dream11 saw a surge of 44.4% and managed 60 million requests per minute. More than 18 million contests were joined by users, making around 7.9 million entries in a single contest. When they were the title sponsor of this tournament, they witnessed 10x growth in traffic and 50% growth in transactions.
One of the leading fantasy platforms MyTeam11 has a user base of around 1 million in a month. They have also seen growth last year and all credit goes to Indian T20 League. They claimed that MyTeam11 saw a user-base of around 3 million which is triple their previous number. My11Circle was one step ahead and they achieved 5x growth from web and mobile traffic and 7x growth in user-base.
Growth for Indian T20 League in 2020 despite a pandemic year
In last four years, we have seen a rapid rise in a fantasy sports game. The user base increased to 9 Cr from 20 lakhs in 2019. As per KPMG reports, revenue cost got triple last year as in 2019, the revenue was 924 crores and in 2020, fantasy platforms made 2470 crores. Fantasy sports platforms made 6000 corers in CEA (Contest Entry Amount) and it got double now with 16500 crores in the financial year 2020. The report also states that around 15-20% of active users on fantasy platforms are paid users. If we talk about the numbers of the previous edition of the Indian T20 League and the last season which was held in UAE saw a huge 28% increase in viewership compared to the season 2019. It was a more challenging season for organizers due to covid and we can accept one face is, user-base increased during the pandemic.
Brand value only because of Indian T20 League
Last year, the leading fantasy company Dream11 won the title sponsorship for the Indian T20 League 2020. In this period, My11Circle accepted that they have spent a record amount on ads that were never spent before by them. When the new startups were evolving, the Indian T20 League gave them life. MyTeam11 also confirmed that the Indian T20 League provided them a big boost to revenue when the entire sports industry was struggling in 2020. New fantasy platforms like FanFight hit the 10 million subscriber base mark. New platforms even invested huge money in their ads and they focused on their brand by appointing big names as their brand ambassador.
Apart from MyTeam11, Dream11, and My11Circle, new apps appointed some renowned names as their brand ambassador like KL Rahul for Gamezy, Irfan Pathan for Howzat, etc. My11Circle went one step ahead and announced Bollywood star, Ranveer Singh, as their brand ambassador ahead of Indian T20 League 2021. It shows the popularity and impact of fantasy sports in India during the Indian T20 League. Dream11 appointed Dhoni as their brand ambassador and the fantasy market has evolved rapidly since then. In 2019, BCCI signed up Dream11 as Indian T20 League's official fantasy sports partner till 2022. We saw a huge growth in the fantasy sports market. We're sure, Indian T20 League will get more money in 2022 when so many fantasy platforms will bid for the fantasy sports partnership in Indian T20 League.
Almost all fantasy platforms invest their bigger part of money during the season of the Indian T20 League. We see new advertisements, new deals, new updates, and new offers. This is the power of the world's most popular cricket league.
Revenue through CEA and other aspects
During the Indian T20 League, the fantasy platforms start the contest at a low price and it allows more users to participate. During the 2021 season, My11Circle came up with the idea of Rs 1 to 1 crore and they increased their user base. Cricket is India's biggest game and this game takes around 85% of the share of the CEA. How Indian T20 League is important for fantasy platforms? We can understand this by the downfall of the fantasy platform during the lockdown and the tournament was postponed. Play Fantasy Cricket came back in July 2020 but it didn't make a big effect on their revenue. Fantasy platforms revived their user base and revenue when the Indian T20 League was held in UAE. Indian T20 League constitutes 35-40% of the industry revenue.
Conclusion: Indian T20 League adds more value to different sports industry sections, including broadcasting, sponsorship, and fantasy users. This league has set a standard and fantasy users are increasing in large numbers like we saw KPMG's report. Popularity depends on the idea of user base and revenue system. It's bigger than every new season.