Termed as a cricket-crazy nation, India has witnessed and welcomed the games’ many facets over the years. In fact, according to the YouGov Global Fan Profiles Report 2022, India proudly occupies the top spot globally, boasting the largest community of cricket enthusiasts.
Simultaneously, the country is experiencing a rise in video games and esports consumption. The IMARC Group put India’s esports market size at $165.7 million in 2022, and expects it to reach $522.6 million by 2028. On the other hand, over 471 million people viewed the IPL tournament this year.
Drawing a connection between these two dynamic worlds, Rajan Navani, founder and CEO of JetSynthesys, says India has the potential to make cricket the esports export to the world. “If we can get a fraction of the current esports players to take up cricket games professionally and get more enthusiasts of the game to start watching cricket esports, the captive audience pool will be stupendous,” he said.
Strong bench strength
Backed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla, and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, Pune-based JetSynthesys is one of the world’s leading skill-based cricket gaming franchises. Its most sought-after games Real Cricket and Sachin Saga have seen a total of 350 million and 30 million downloads over the years respectively.
JetSynthesys claims to be the only company in the world to export cricket esports to a global audience. It started its esports investment journey in 2015 establishing esports and gaming firm Nodwin Gaming (now a Nazara Technologies company). Since then, it has built over 300 games tailored for various platforms, including Android, iOS, HTML, and Java. “Today, JetSynthesys occupies 90% of the Indian PC gaming payments and esports market with known names like Nodwin Gaming, Jet Skyesports, and NovaPlay in its repertoire,” claimed Navani.
The right matrix
In 2021, JetSynthesys acquired Skyesports, a Chennai-based esports company focusing on grassroot level tournaments to promote the sport among vernacular markets and audiences. Last year, JetSynthesys formed Jetapult, a venture following the invest-and-operate model for global gaming studios.
“There is a unique blend seen between gaming and entertainment as a result of narrative-driven gameplay that targets the young demographic, growing viewership on streaming services, and mainstream media’s live coverage of e-sports events. And we are focused on monetising this interest in the next three to five years,” he said.
In a joint venture with Sachin Tendulkar, the company launched 100MB, a digital destination to engage cricket fans, featuring exclusive videos by cricketers, quizzes, cricket games, live scores, prediction games, merchandise and auctions. Having seen the maximum growth in its gaming and esports vertical, JetSynthesys introduced one of the biggest IPs in the esports segment called ‘Global E-Cricket Premier League’ earlier this year. Structured like the IPL, GEPL will feature esports players across the country, participating in the first franchise-based cricket esports tournament in the world. With multiple teams, players from the cricketing world as coaches, and esports stalwarts as mentors, GEPL is poised to take esports to the masses, riding on the existing cricket juggernaut. Masses not just here in India but also those across the world.