Dream11 on Wednesday announced its worldwide partnership with the International Council of Cricket (ICC) as its ‘Official Fantasy Game Partner’ till 2023. This partnership will allow the Dream11 users to select their fantasy teams for all the official ICC events, once the official teams are announced. Dream11 will develop and operate fantasy games relating to ICC events that will include all the T20 matches, World Cup and Test matches across major Men, Women, Junior and Qualifier events.
Announcing the partnership, Harsh Jain, CEO and Co-Founder, Dream11 said that fans are in for a highly engaging and immersive experience helping them get closer to real-life cricketing action by virtue of their ICC Dream11 teams. He said that new product innovations will also be explored for future ICC events.
“We are thrilled to be the global Official Fantasy Game of ICC – the apex body of cricket, for all their matches going forward. The ICC Dream11 partnership will provide the best, most trusted fantasy cricket experience to billions of fans globally,” he said.
Speaking to Financial Express Online about this partnership, Harsh said that it will allow Dream11 to increase its fan base and to amplify a cricket fan’s engagement with real-life cricket. The first big tournament after this partnership would be next year’s 50-over World Cup but Harsh believes that all ICC events are significant in terms of delivering a great fantasy game experience.
“Even for the on-going ICC Women’s World T20, West Indies, we are running an integrated marketing campaign. Likewise, for next year’s ICC World Cup, we will be launching an integrated marketing campaign to drive participation. We will also feature all the ICC matches for next year’s World Cup on our platform,” he said.
The Sports Gaming platform currently claims to have 4.5 crore users in India and aims to reach the 10-crore mark globally.
“India is the most active and biggest market for cricket and currently, Dream11 is focusing its energy on garnering users from within India. As of now, we have a customer base of 4.5 Crore users – a majority of these are from India and in the future, we expect this to increase this number, both in India and overseas,” Harsh added.
Commenting on the partnership, David Richardson, CEO of the International Cricket Council, said, “The ICC is delighted to welcome Dream11 on board to deliver a fantasy cricket platform for cricket’s one billion plus fans across all ICC events. Giving fans the opportunity to enjoy our sport in more ways, by playing fantasy cricket throughout the tournament or for individual games, is important to us.”