- Gross Gaming Revenue of Fantasy Sports during IPL is expected to grow by ~30-35 % to reach INR 2900-3100 Cr in 2023
- Transacting users during IPL season is expected to grow by 25-30% in 2023, with nearly 60-65% of users coming from Tier-2 cities and beyond.
India is a cricket-crazy country celebrating or sobbing together with unmatched passion as their team scores or sinks. IPL 2023 is constantly keeping the nation on its toes, with 10 teams competing for the coveted trophy. The cash-rich league has nearly all top global players playing this season.
Since its inception in 2008, IPL has predominantly been a televised sporting event with an audience of around 100 million viewers. Over the years, its viewership peaked at 460 million in IPL 12 – 2019 During COVID-19, IPL viewership on TV dropped by 10% as the lack of live sporting events caused many sports viewers to migrate to OTT platforms.
While the live game in the stadiums is where the real action is, its offshoots spread deep into the virtual world in the form of fantasy leagues. For the uninitiated, fantasy cricket is an online game where fans can create virtual IPL teams of real cricketers playing in the season. The fantasy game requires users to play strategically, knowing the records of each player, and making their own estimations. Points are earned based on the performance of their players in actual matches, with the platforms offering lucrative prize money to the users.
Redseer estimates that the IPL market size is expected to have grown because of several factors, including increased awareness of fantasy gaming and new platforms increasing their marketing efforts. Ujjwal Chaudhry, Partner at Redseer Strategy Consultants, says,
“Steep growth in fantasy sports gaming will come from tier 2 cities driven by increasing adoption of fantasy platforms and cross-migration of users from other games. Increased internet accessibility will give a push to the IPL economy. Our estimates suggest that the average revenue per user is expected to grow from INR 410 in IPL 2022 to INR 440 per user in IPL 2023.”
Ujjwal, further adds that encouragement from the government in the form of formalized rules and regulations regarding GST for RMG platforms and Google allowing fantasy platforms on the Google Play Store will further increase transacting users during IPL 2023.
“There has been an increase in efforts to make platforms more secure and reliable for the users. Measures like RNG certification, secure payment gateways, and fraud security, increase user trust in the platforms, and subsequently build confidence in the users to spend higher amounts on gaming.” adds Saurav Kumar Chachan, Director, Redseer Strategy Consultants.
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