The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 has begun with a drop in the number of advertisers for the opening day match on both television and digital, according to media buyers. This comes even as the match between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings on March 31 witnessed record viewership on digital and TV, according to data shared by both JioCinema and Star Sports.
Media buyers that FE spoke to said that there were 31 live match advertisers, which is 40% lower versus 52 last year for the first match of the tournament on television.
On Monday, JioCinema, which is the digital platform of the Reliance-backed Viacom18 streaming the IPL, said that it onboarded a record 23 sponsors for the T20 tournament in the first week. Star Sports, part of the Disney-Star network, on the other hand, said that it had 13 sponsors for the IPL this year on TV. Disney-Star has the TV rights of the tournament.
The sponsors included Dream11, PhonePe, Appy Fizz, Castrol, TVS, Oreo, Amazon, UltraTech Cement, Puma and Kamla Pasand, among others, on JioCinema. While Disney-Star has brands such as Asian Paints, Mountain Dew, Britannia and Parle Biscuits advertising on its network.
Sajal Gupta, chief executive officer of Gurugram-based Kiaos Marketing, said that the drop in advertising for the opening match was a blip, which would improve as the tournament progresses.
“I don’t think there is a dearth of advertising dollars. My sense is that the competitive fury between the two broadcasters going into the IPL was high, which resulted in this first-match lull from an advertising perspective. You have to remember that viewership was high for the first match and opening weekend on digital and TV. I see advertising picking up on the IPL in the weeks ahead,” Gupta said.
JioCinema had indicated last week that that over 60 million unique viewers had tuned-in for the Gujarat Titans versus Chennai Super Kings match, which had achieved a peak concurrency of over 16 million on JioCinema. The total match views on Day 1 on JioCinema had touched 500 million, it said.
For the opening weekend, JioCinema had over 1.47 billion video views, with new app downloads at 50 million, according to Anil Jayaraj, chief executive officer, Viacom18 Sports. “These numbers are evidence of the digital revolution sweeping through the country,” Jayaraj said.
Disney-Star, meanwhile, said that it saw a 47% year-on-year jump in TV consumption for the opening match between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings at 8.7 billion minutes, while its TV ratings spiked 29% versus last year.
The broadcaster also said that peak concurrency for the opening match was 55.9 million and engagement for the match was 76 minutes, according to data by the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC).
Television continued to be the “preferred platform” for uninterrupted viewing of live cricket, Sanjog Gupta, head, sports, Disney-Star, said. “The massive growth in viewing time of the IPL on Star is a testament to the success of our campaign,” Gupta said.