The thrilling last-ball win for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) against its match with Mumbai Indians (MI) took the viewership a notch up on Disney+ Hotstar with the streaming platform witnessing one of the strongest viewership numbers for season 15 of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
The official streaming partner of the league, Disney+ Hotstar saw viewership in the last overs of the match hovering in the range of 7.5-7.8 million. Then in the final over when MS Dhoni helped his team get the required 17 runs to win their second game of the season, the viewership on the platform reached 8.3 million.
With viewership on the over the top (OTT) platform ranging between 6-7 million for matches of the 15th season of the league, the CSK -MI match is one of the most viewed games on the streaming platform so far.
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In fact, the CSK -MI match played last evening saw higher traction than the final match of season 14 when MS Shoni-led CSK had won the IPL and viewership had reached 6.6 million on Disney+ Hotstar
Last year, viewership had ranged between 5.7 million and 6.7 million on the OTT platform, including in the first half of the league.
But, CSK's win against MI on April 21 could not surpass the registered peak viewership of 8.7 million concurrent viewers during IPL 13.
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The highest viewership record that IPL has so far on the digital platform is during the 12th edition when the match between RCB and MI had registered concurrency of 12.7 million viewers, which was later broken by the final when the platform saw 18 million viewers tuning in to watch the league.
While season 15 is yet to break any viewership records, CSK's performance in the league may help IPL 2022 to make or break viewership records. Afterall, CSK is one of the most followed team of the IPL.
This year, Chennai Super Kings emerged as the biggest sports franchise in India, according to a report by media consulting firm, Ormax Media.
It is the most popular IPL team in India, with 40.9 million fans. Its loyal fan base of 22.5 million people is almost the same as the entire fanbase of football in India, the report said.
The report also pegs India’s sports fan base at 136.3 million with cricket leading at 124.2 million fans followed by kabaddi, wrestling and football in a close contest for the second position, with 23-28 million fans each.
The report also mentions TV versus digital consumption of sports. While 44 percent Indian sports fans watch live sports only on TV, a sizeable 36 percent are using both traditional and digital media to watch live sports, while the remaining 20 percent are watching exclusively on digital, the report said.
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