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Tito Das · · 7 min readIndia’s online fantasy sports knocks it out of the park with investors
When the title sponsorship rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) was up for grabs in August this year, few expected an online fantasy sports platform to emerge as the winner.
Valued at US$6.7 billion in 2019 and watched by more than 400 million cricket fans, the IPL attracted big-name suitors like Tata Group, India’s biggest conglomerate, and Jio, a mobile services operator owned by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani.
Yet it was Dream11, an online sports fantasy platform founded in 2008, that defied the odds and secured the rights, paying nearly US$32 million for one year.
Image credit: Siddharth Bishnu
Soon after Dream11’s triumph, Mobile Premier League (MPL), valued at US$450 million after raising US$90 million in September 2020, became the kit sponsor for the Indian cricket team.
In many ways, having Dream11 and MPL’s logos on India’s marquee sporting properties marked the coming of age of online fantasy sports (OFS) in the country.
OFS are prediction games where users put together a virtual team of real sports players. The concept of fantasy sports, which originated in the US, is to score points and join virtual leagues.
Several operators have monetized fantasy sports by getting users to pay to participate, lured by the prospect of winning money based on how their virtual teams perform in the real world.
The rise of OFS in India
In India, fantasy sports has skyrocketed in the last three years, gaining millions of registered users and roughly half a billion US dollars’ worth of private equity and venture capital investments. According to industry insiders, increasing smartphone usage and digital payments have been instrumental to this development.
“Smartphone penetration, the rise in mobile and broadband subscribers, and the lowest data cost globally have all contributed to the OFS growth story in India, not to mention the love for cricket,” says Bhavin Pandya, co-founder and CEO of Games24x7. His company runs an OFS platform called My11Circle.
Skill-based fantasy sports games have become a part of the daily routine of India’s youth, who are looking for immersive and engaging entertainment, he adds.
Girish Menon, head of media and entertainment at KPMG India, told *Tech in Asia* that the registered user base of OFS in India jumped from 20 million in December 2017 to 90 million in December 2019.
The industry has been working on increasing the acceptability of OFS.
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Not easily replicable
Regulatory risks persist
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Online fantasy sports has skyrocketed in India. While many take a dim view of the industry, Indonesia could follow in the South Asian country’s footsteps.
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