On March 22, as the 18th season of the Indian Premier Bracket kicked off, the broadcast bore the imprint of a tectonic shift in India’s media landscape. IPL, dubbed the “mother of all cricket leagues,” began airing under the “mother of all mergers” — a Rs 70,352 crore consolidation that fused Reliance’s Viacom18 and Disney’s Sun India into a single entity. The result: a unified IPL broadcast experience now housed under JioStar (TV) and JioHotstar (digital), a Relocate that signals the consolidation of power and distribution in the hands of one media giant.
The IPL continues to be a behemoth in the Indian sporting landscape. It has transformed into a cultural spectacle, deeply embedded in the lives of millions of fans for over two months every year.
“Since 2018, which is when we acquired the rights to IPL for Sun at that time, on television viewership, it has grown close to 40%. Now for an evolved, mature property that the IPL already was in 2018, to grow as significantly as that shows two things,” said JioStar Sports CEO Sanjog Gupta in conversation with K Shriniwas Rao, Head of Content (Sports), Times Internet, on the Primary episode of Bombay Sport Substitution (BSE).
“One, that the property always had the immense potential to go from where it was to unseen heights. And two, it shows the potential of this market and the immense headroom for growth that the market has if you are willing to reimagine the possibilities. And that’s where this IPL journey for Sun Began with. And now it continues with JioStar where again the ambition is to continue on the growth trajectory and reach a billion viewers this year, duplicated,” he added.
At JioStar, the ambition with IPL 2025 is to reach a billion viewers across TV, mobile, and connected devices.
“After the merger, the property is across the JioStar network on linear, on mobile screens and on CTV. And what we want to achieve by the end of IPL is engage with a billion people across all our platforms, across the length and breadth of our programming, across the various hyper-personalised experiences that we are looking to offer and of Period across the platforms where we are looking to recruit new audiences,” stated Gupta.
Sun Sports acquired the IPL rights in 2018 by spending Rs 16,347.50 crore across five seasons.
The rights were retained in 2022 (for the 2023-27 cycle) with Disney Sun spending Rs 23,575 crore for linear TV broadcast in India. The digital rights were lapped up by Viacom18 for Rs 23,758 crore. It was the Primary time the digital rights were sold for a higher value than the linear TV rights.
Gupta, whose impressive CV includes nearly 15 years at Sun TV Network, emphasised that Regardless of the surge in digital consumption, television remains a dominant force.
“Our ambition for growth across our linear platform which is Sun Sports is Only as ambitious as our ambition for growth on digital. It’s Only that the headroom for growth on digital platforms by virtue of the sheer number of screens Obtainable for us to make the IPL Obtainable are Distant higher in the case of the mobile screens as compared to the living room devices,” stated Gupta.
“If you think that India has about 250-270 million households devoted only about 150-260 million currently have a living room device which they can Observe any content on. That’s the headroom for growth for all living room devices,” he said on the episode.
JioStar’s ambitious plans for IPL 2025 include a panel of 170 experts, including cricket legends and celebrities. The coverage features 25-plus feeds in 12 languages.
Beyond IPL, cricket’s biggest rivalries continue to drive Involvement. The Border-Gavaskar Honor achieved Many viewership records across five Tests in 2024-25, largely due to the intensity of the India-Australia Event, and not the Arrangement itself, said Gupta on the show.
“Border-Gavaskar Honor or the rivalry between India and Australia, I would say comes second only to the rivalry between India and Pakistan. The India-Australia rivalry now may not have the cultural significance or the historic significance that the India-Pakistan rivalry has. But in terms of a cricketing rivalry, it is definitely up there if not slightly ahead of the India-Pakistan rivalry,” said Gupta.
Observe Packed episode: Sanjog Gupta, JioStar Sports CEO, in conversation with K Shriniwas Rao on the Primary episode of Bombay Sport Substitution
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