So what if India got knocked out at the semi-final stage of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022? The India-New Zealand series (November 18-30) starts this week, and just like the average Indian cricket fan, Prime Video has a lot riding on it. For starters, it will play ads during the live telecast of matches when India takes on the Black Caps in three T20s and three ODIs.

Prime Video has already roped in two advertisers and six sponsors.

Airtel Xstream Fiber is the presenting sponsor and consumer brands like MPL, Nescafé, Noise, OLX Autos, and Vida have come on board as associate sponsors. In addition, brands like AMFI (Association of Mutual Funds in India) and DBS have also been confirmed as advertisers. “What makes it really seamless for the platform is the fact that cricket as a format is built for advertising,” says Chaitanya Divan, head of sports, Prime Video India. “As per our research, fans don’t mind the advertising. But the one thing that’s taken away from the experience of watching live cricket is the advertising clutter that comes with it. We are looking to provide an enhanced experience with low clutter.”

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That said, in the current environment, ad budgets are under strain with many new-age brands shying away from big spends and the big advertisers showing more prudence than ever before, say experts.

Disney+Hotstar, for instance, sold spots at Rs 10 lakh for 10 seconds for the preliminary round matches of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 — a tad lower than last year’s Rs 10.5 lakh-10.75 lakh for 10 seconds; about Rs 12-15 lakh for league matches; and around Rs 20-22 lakh per 10 seconds for the knockout matches.

Karan Taurani, senior VP, Elara Capital, expects the ad rates for the India-NZ series to remain subdued. He estimates the platform to make Rs 150-180 crore in ad revenue (for the FIFA World Cup, Viacom18 Sports is eyeing Rs 300 crore in ad revenue from TV and digital). The streaming platform has recently launched a mobile edition at Rs 599 per year, in the hope of increasing accessibility and widen reach. “My assessment is that it has 20 million-odd subscribers and we will see a big delta in terms of the number of subscribers now,” he says.

Divan is hopeful that the series will set new benchmarks in terms of viewership and engagement with its Prime member base.

“Since we have customers streaming from 99% of the pin codes on Prime Video today, it is reasonable to assume that pretty much everybody across the country is going to be tuning in. In terms of subscriber base, this is going to be a pivotal moment in our journey,” adds Sushant Sreeram, director, SVOD business, Prime Video India.

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Sreeram’s hopes are not entirely misplaced. India has a sports fan base of 136.3 million and cricket leads with 124.2 million fans, according to a report by Ormax Media.

While 44% of sports fans watch live sports only on TV, a sizeable 36% use both traditional and digital media, while the remaining 20% watch exclusively on digital. “There are many things that are heterogenous about diverse India when it comes to entertainment, but there is one absolute unifier that everyone across the country is unanimously passionate about, and that’s cricket,” Sreeram says.