As many as 12 million viewers streamed India-Australia match on Hotstar

With the Australians taking on India in a 5-match ODI and 3 T20I series taking off, the action-packed event also soared the viewership with over 12 million users glued to the match via Hotstar, Star India’s digital platform in the First ODI. The figures indicate India’s evergrowing appetite for sports on the Internet. To be exact, 95% of this viewership streamed the match live on the 17th of Septemeber, i.e., the day of Chennai ODI.

Star India hogged all the limelight with their 16,000 crore deal with BCCI for IPL’s media rights. The broadcast giants outbid Sony Pictures Networks even though they had a higher bid for telecast rights in India. It was only due to bids made by Star in globally which outbid the aggregate of SPN. Therefore, Star now has hold of the global telecast feed for the cash-rich league.

Star trumped Facebook, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel for Internet rights

Star also outbid the likes of Facebook for IPL’s Internet and mobile rights for India at Rs 3900 crores. The cumulative bid made by other parties such Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio added up to Rs 13,485 crores.

“To me, its the dual screen syndrome, its the chance to watch the match even while you’re not in front of the TV set. We saw the numbers for IPL’s digital rights soar in the recent auctions and this online viewership pie for cricket, especially on mobile, will only continue to grow. These big numbers pouring in is a testimony to that,” commented the Chief Operating Officer of SE TransStadia Ltd, Hiren Pandit according to Live Mint.

On Hotstar, the online viewership of IPL has shown an upward trend year-on-year with 41 million viewers in 2015, 100 million in 2016. According to a report published by Duff & Phelps, a New York-based corporate finance advisory firm, it is expected to have reached a 130 million mark in 2017,