Disney’s cricket streaming strategy in India highlights the economic impact of the sport

Those from non-traditional cricketing nations tend to scoff at the British Commonwealth bat and ball sport, a game widely regarded as confined to only a small part of the globe.

Because the sport’s governing body supports an elitist structure with only 12 countries holding top-level membership and offering more funding, power and playing opportunities, cricket’s growth has been slow compared to other global team sports such as football and basketball.

But often to the surprise of those not in the cricket world, there is a lot of money at stake, mainly coming from India – the world’s most populous country, where cricket has a stranglehold.

Huge investments have been made in cricket amidst India’s growing economic growth.

This was reflected in last year’s astronomical $6 billion media rights deal for the Indian Premier League – the world’s most popular and richest T20 competition, which attracts most of the top players and effectively shuts down the cricket calendar in April and May.

While the sport’s governing body has a $3 billion broadcast deal for the next four-year event period – a significant increase on its current deal – India has been controversially set to pocket nearly 40 per cent of the revenue share.

Such a lure in this part of the world, cricket has been the main focus of Disney’s streaming strategy in India. In a major development, the company recently announced that Hotstar – India’s largest premium streaming platform owned by Disney – will offer free streaming of cricket tournaments in India on mobile devices.

It is part of Disney’s strategic reassessment after rival JioCinema – backed by the deep pockets of billionaire Mukesh Ambanis Viacom18 – managed to garner millions of viewers by streaming the recent IPL for free on its platform.

Users will be able to stream this year’s Asia Cup – to be played in Pakistan and likely Sri Lanka in September – and the subsequent World Cup in India at no cost.

That’s a departure from Disney’s previous strategy of requiring users to subscribe to a paid plan in recent years. Disney believes the free streaming service will reach more than 540 million smartphone users in an effort to make matches “accessible to every mobile user in India.”

Perhaps inevitably, cricket has drifted into an increasingly heated rivalry between Ambani, currently ranked 13th on Forbes’ Real Time Billionaires list, and Disney, who once owned the coveted IPL rights.

Losing the media rights to India’s most popular sports league, the IPL, has reportedly become expensive for Disney’s Hotstar, whose subscriber base later shrank by around five million users in India.

But Disney’s decision to follow its rival’s book has raised eyebrows.

“If continued in the long term, free-to-air cricket offers could increase losses for streaming platforms or lead to consolidation as many platforms may not be able to survive on lower revenue per user,” Elara Capital analyst Karan Taurani said. Reuters.

This raging war is raging in a country where the streaming industry is booming and the money spinner of Indian cricket is caught in the middle.

Cricket is quite simply an economic monster in India, and it attracts plenty of starry-eyed admirers – but also a healthy dose of resentment – in the sport’s traditional playing fields.

Indian cricket, with major influence on major streaming companies amid billion-dollar media rights deals, may just help change the sport’s often-derided reputation outside traditional boundaries.