IPL resumption leads more players to tune into fantasy sports platforms

The suspension of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League had made the fantasy sports industry nervous. Now, the league’s comeback has resulted in an increase in engagement for online fantasy sports platforms.

Fantasy sports is a skill-based online sport in which fans create their own teams, choosing players from upcoming games. These virtual teams accumulate points based on the actual performance of the players during the real-life matches and the winners are declared accordingly.

IPL generates 30-40 percent of the revenue for fantasy sports platforms.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India suspended the tournament in early May due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

It resumed on September 19, with 31 matches scheduled to be played over 27 days in the United Arab Emirates. This led to growth among users of online fantasy sports platforms.

IPL fuelling fantasy

Sunil Yadav, CEO of PlayerzPot, said there is a 4x growth in the number of users and their participation following the restart of IPL 14. Other fantasy sports platforms are also experiencing similar trends.

“With the IPL restarting, we are seeing a 3x-4x increase in engagement for our fantasy platform,” said Karan S Kumar, Leadership at InnoPark, which operates fantasy sports platform Khel Yaar.

“If we look at the gross gaming revenue, that is up by 2x since IPL phase 2 started,” said Sumit Kumar Jha, founder of Fantasy Akhada. The platform is seeing 3x increase in daily active users, Jha told Moneycontrol.

Fantasy sports platforms now expect growth in the overall user base to get a boost after IPL 14, when the T20 World Cup starts.

“We’re anticipating a healthy double-digit increment in our player base over two tournaments (IPL 14 and T20 World Cup),” said Saroj Panigrahi, senior VP at My11Circle.

Saurabh Chopra, CEO of BalleBaazi, anticipates its user base will grow by 30-40 percent with IPL and the T20 World Cup. BalleBaazi currently has about 7 million users.

Fantasy Akhada roped in cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle as investor and brand ambassador last year and currently has about 600,000 users. Jha expects this number to grow by 25 percent.

“We believe that there is no better property to see the volume spike that we desire and hence we are going all guns blazing with our marketing initiatives to hit these growth numbers by mid-October,” he added. Jha said they also expect a 3-4x jump in month-on-month gaming revenue.

PlayerzPot, which has about 2 million users, expects to add 2 million users.

“In terms of revenue growth post-IPL 14, we are expecting an overall growth of 30-40 percent from the current numbers,” said PlayerzPot’s Yadav.

Growth momentum

Overall, revenue for the online fantasy sports segment grew to Rs 2,400 crore in FY20 from Rs 920 crore in FY19, according to a FIFS-KPMG 2020 report.

Jha said the splitting of IPL, followed by the ICC WT20, are factors that will play a big role in maintaining a 30-35 percent growth rate this year.

Parth Das, founder of the Collective Ace Group, a company that focuses on the services sector in the gaming industry, pointed out that despite strong growth, fantasy sports has captured only one-eighth of the addressable market.

“Dream11’s sponsorship of the 2020 IPL has put forth a lot of visibility and focus onto the fantasy sports segment in India and given that there are, in general, more sport events happening now in 2021 post-Covid restrictions, the growth trend is expected to continue through 2021,” he added.

However, he said the magnitude of the growth may be lower than what it was in 2020 because there are more avenues of entertainment that are once again available again to audiences after the lifting of restrictions and limitations imposed due to Covid.

InnoPark’s Kumar concurred. He said multiple events and series had been cancelled due to the scare caused by new variants of the coronavirus and IPL itself had been split into two phases.

“This is a completely new scenario for all of us and how it affects growth in the fantasy sports market needs to be seen,” Kumar said.