Q: How many people watched the ICC Cricket World Cup final on 19^th Nov?

Disney+ Hotstar reported a record-breaking concurrent viewership of 59m on its platform during the ICC Cricket World Cup final between India and Australia. This was 85% higher than the previous record of 32m recorded in May this year during the IPL (Indian Premier League) final. Moreover, as India’s TV regulator BARC’s study shows that co-viewing is very common in the country and typically involves 3-4 individuals, around 177m -236m consumers in India potentially watched the stream of the ICC final on Sunday.  (Note: For more analysis of cricket’s popularity in India and beyond, read Ampere’s latest report Profiling Cricket Fandom)

Q: Why did so many people watch the ICC World Cup final? What’s behind this number? 

Cricket is by far the most popular sport in India, while ICC is the most popular sports competition among Indian consumers. Ampere’s consumer survey (n=2,000 online respondents, nationally representative of age and gender) shows that 32% of Indian consumers enjoy watching the ICC Cricket World Cup, the highest among all sports competitions in India. Moreover, a crucial factor that drove up the viewership is that Disney+ Hotstar made viewing this year’s ICC Cricket World Cup free, instead of putting it behind the paywall as it did with ICC competitions in previous years. Disney+ Hotstar’s change of strategy comes in the context of its major competitor Jio Cinema putting this year’s IPL (Indian Premier League) on the free ad-funded tier, and Disney+ Hotstar’s drastic decline in subscriptions following its loss of IPL rights and other high-profile Hollywood content to Jio Cinema.

Q: What does this mean for the wider Indian streaming market? 

Sports rights values have been growing rapidly in India. Disney+ Hotstar paid almost $2bn for the ICC rights from 2015 to 2023, before paying over $3bn for the rights for the following cycle between 2024 and 2027. IPL rights from 2023 to 2027, meanwhile, sold for $6.2bn, almost three times higher than the previous five-year cycle. For Disney+ Hotstar, years of high investment into sports rights but low ARPUs have caused huge financial loss, and in order to drive revenue growth and achieve profitability, Disney+ Hotstar, just like its competitor Reliance Jio, is looking to grow advertising revenue based on India’s large viewer base (rather than relying on subscription revenue) by putting key cricket events in front of the paywall.

The ICC World Cup wasn’t the only free sports events on Disney+ Hotstar, either. The Asia Cup cricket tournament earlier this year was available for free too, and following the record-breaking viewership of ICC’s final, Disney+ Hotstar announced that Pro Kabaddi League Season 10, another hugely popular competition in India, will also be accessible to free users.

The change of strategy - making high-level sports events freely available - by the two major sports rights owners reflects the underlying change in India’s streaming market, with streamers increasingly looking at generating advertising revenue to monetise sports events rather than subscription revenue, which has not grown in proportion to sports rights investment in the past years. Looking ahead, we are likely to see more high-level sports events put for free viewing, CPM on sports live events to grow, and India’s total online video advertising revenue to be the growth driver of India’s wider online streaming market.