India’s largest streaming platform, JioStar, may have dismissed speculation that its multibillion-rupee cricket rights contract with International Cricket Council (ICC) will either end or be renegotiated, but the fact remains that cricket broadcasting, once considered the safest investment in media, has quietly become one of its riskiest.
The reason is simple: the economics no longer add up. Cricket viewership in India remains massive, but monetisation hasn’t kept pace. Subscription revenues have plateaued and advertising revenues are volatile and now split between two platforms—TV and digital—unlike the earlier era when television alone absorbed the cost burden.
For streamers, the cost of customer acquisition has exploded. Giving free cricket to drive data consumption, which Jio did initially, has destroyed standalone streaming economics. Once millions watched the game at zero cost, subscription-led monetisation became almost impossible. Hotstar learnt this the hard way when its paid subscriber base plunged after losing Indian Premier League (IPL) rights. Jio risks a similar imbalance if free streaming doesn’t eventually convert into value somewhere else in its ecosystem.
Core Economic Imbalance
Every cycle of rights auction has pushed prices into new territory. That inflation has now hit a wall. Today, broadcasters pay more for rights, technology, and bandwidth and for marketing and retention while earning less per viewer than they did five years ago. The cost of cricket inventory has skyrocketed—IPL team valuations have exploded, media rights are priced like premium global sports leagues, and even secondary sponsorship categories command record fees. But viewership growth is no longer keeping pace, especially on traditional television. Digital viewership is rising, but it is fragmented, harder to measure, and more difficult to convert into brand loyalty. So advertisers are now asking a question they rarely asked earlier: Does the return justify the cheque? Often, the answer is: Not necessarily, as the once-rare premium event has turned into a year-round commodity.
There are other reasons too for cricket broadcasting finding itself on a turning pitch. For Jio, the game earlier was to rapidly scale its digital ecosystem. That phase is over. For Disney, India was once a growth engine; now the global parent demands profitability. And both players have realised that content costs must reflect the revenue reality—not the prestige value of owning cricket. This has wide impact on the Board of Control for Cricket in India which enjoyed two decades of uninterrupted rights inflation. That era has likely ended. In the previous cycle, Star and Viacom spent big bucks on cricket rights. With both now combined, competitive intensity has fallen sharply. Sony Pictures, once a major spender and the holder of IPL rights until 2017, has avoided aggressive bidding in recent times. Global streamers Netflix and Prime Video remain cautious as their subscription-driven models do not align with the advertising economics of live sports.
Reduced Competition
It’s just a matter of time before even the deepest-pocketed broadcasters start signalling distress. It’s quite likely that future auctions will either see lower bids, demand revenue-share models, or involve hybrid partnerships where the broadcaster refuses to carry all risk. It’s clear that the future of cricket broadcasting lies in smaller but smarter bids and more focus on profitability over visibility. In short, cricket will remain India’s biggest content magnet, but the blank-cheque era is over. Make no mistake: cricket retains its popularity but popularity does not equal profitability. The Indian consumer has evolved faster than the cricket business model, and unless rights valuations reflect this new reality, exits, renegotiations, and strategic pivots are inevitable.