The continuing FIFA World Cup has reached 100 million viewers throughout tv and digital platforms in India, whereas producing 360 million views throughout social media. Zee’s sports activities channels have reached an estimated 25 million+ households nationwide, pushed by the FIFA World Cup.
Equally, the not too long ago concluded IPL recorded 1.2 billion viewers throughout tv and digital platforms, with 870 billion minutes of watch-time, up 7% year-on-year. The ultimate between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Gujarat Titans grew to become the match’s most-watched match ever, reaching over 400 million viewers throughout screens.
Learn extra: FIFA 2026 is a lot greater than soccer
The shift in sports activities viewing is turning into more and more seen in viewers behaviour, with linked TV rising because the fastest-growing platform, posting 22% year-on-year development in the course of the IPL, whereas digital video views rose 8% to 25 billion. JioStar stated the share of regional language watch-time on digital elevated 33%, pushed by greater consumption amongst prosperous and youthful viewers.
The rise of linked TV is coinciding with an erosion in conventional pay tv. In response to the FICCI-EY report, India misplaced 11 million pay TV households in 2025, whereas weekly lively linked TV properties elevated to about 40 million from 30 million in 2024, underscoring altering viewing habits.
“IPL 2026 was a season by which we launched into a journey to outline what a really built-in sports activities platform ought to seem like,” stated Ishan Chatterjee, CEO, Sports activities, JioStar. “The season-ending knowledge is a testomony to the efforts we made throughout platforms, with CTV’s communal expertise and regional language presentation rising as unprecedented development drivers.”Zee stated its streaming platform Zee5 hosted hundreds of thousands of concurrent customers over the FIFA World Cup opening weekend from June 11 to June 14, with common viewer engagement exceeding 190 minutes for dwell matches, together with the inaugural ceremony.
A Zee Leisure spokesperson stated the size of engagement witnessed over the opening weekend throughout its digital and linear platforms displays the rising ardour for soccer in India.
Learn extra: FIFA World Cup on ZEE5: Followers complain about streaming expertise; report buffering, crashes and no 4K
“With our multi-platform choices, the main target has been on making certain that the worldwide sporting occasion is accessible to all, whereas delivering a seamless and uninterrupted viewing expertise,” the spokesperson added.
The shift in the direction of multi-platform sports activities consumption can be starting to reshape promoting spending, with entrepreneurs more and more allocating budgets past linear tv to linked TV and cellular screens.
In response to WPP Media’s sports activities sponsorship report for 2025, media spending accounted for 51% of the $2 billion sports activities promoting market. Promoting investments rose 19.8% to Rs 9,571 crore, with digital rising quicker at 24% to Rs 4,449 crore, in contrast with tv’s 16.4% development to Rs 5,117 crore.
JioStar stated IPL 2026 attracted 125 new advertisers in contrast with final season, whereas 22 sponsors partnered with JioHotstar and 16 with the Star Sports activities Community. Likewise, Zee signed 12 advertisers, together with Mahindra, Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Apple India, and Mondelez.
Sports activities viewership on linear tv grew to 23.7 billion common weekly viewing minutes in 2025 from 22.4 billion in 2024, in accordance with BARC knowledge cited within the FICCI-EY report for all-India audiences aged two and above.
Comscore, in its The State of Sports activities 2025: India Version report, stated India’s sports activities financial system has entered a decisive digital part, pushed by mobile-first behaviour and social engagement. In June 2025, 118 million Indians accessed sports activities content material digitally, with 90% doing so completely on cellular units, it added.
