IPL 2021 – Star Sports LIVE Broadcast: If the IPL 2020 was the blockbuster year for the IPL official broadcaster Star Sport, IPL 2021 is all set be a MEGA-BLOCKBUSTER. We are almost 3 weeks away from the IPL 2021, but Disney-Star India has already sold 90% of its inventory for the season.
According to information coming in from Star India’s headquarters, deals with 14 brands as broadcast sponsors is already executed for the upcoming season which kicks off from April 9. While Dream11, Byju’s, Just Dial and PhonePe will be their co-presenting sponsors, Vi, Mondelez, ITC’s Bingo, Kamla Pasand, Parle’s Frooti, Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), Asian Paints, Coca-Cola’s Thumbs Up, Amazon Prime, and Groww will be the associate sponsors.
“Star Disney India has sold 90% of its ad inventory. In the coming days, the broadcaster is expected to add few more associate sponsors. The total associate sponsors will be in the range of 12-14,” an anonymous source said, reported Exchange4Media.
IPL 2021: Star ready to cross 3200 Cr advertising revenues on IPL this year.
The broadcaster has set price of INR 13.2 lakh per 10 seconds from co-presenting sponsors and INR 13.6 lakh per 10 seconds from associate sponsors. Spot buyers have to fork out Rs 14.1 to 14.3 lakh for a 10-second spot. As much as 50% of the IPL ad inventory on television will be consumed by sponsors while the remaining half will be utilised by spot buyers.
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In 2020, Star Disney India earned TV ad revenue of INR 2800 crore and is expecting a growth in this edition – but this year according to information available with InsideSport.co Star Sports Network will easily cross 3200 Cr threshold just on advrtising revenues for IPL 2021.
Furthermore, the network is trying to decrease the number of sponsors for IPL. The reason for this is, spot buys fetch better rates than sponsorship rates. In IPL 2020, the sponsors utilised 52% of the ad inventory which will settle at around 50% for IPL 2021 according tot he report by E4m.
The broadcast side of the IPL coverage will see around 90-100 brands advertising on the Star India network.
IPL 2021: HD viewers major contributors for ad revenue
The report, quoting the source said that the contribution of HD source to the overall ad revenue is nearly 40% since HD viewers are mostly top-end homes and are heavy consumers of sports compared to SD viewers. “Almost 90% of HD homes watch sports content while the number for SD homes is only 50-60%,” the source said.
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IPL 2021 Star Sports LIVE Broadcast: Multi-lingual feed for the upcoming season
Just like the previous season, IPL 2021 too is likely to have a multi-lingual telecast. Last year, the tournament was live-streamed in Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, and Marathi language. Interestingly, Star is also mulling to air matches on Star Disney’s kid’s channels.
Star Disney India’s streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar has also had a good start with 10 sponsors coming on-board. Dream11 is the co-presenting sponsor, Upstox and Vimal Elaichi are co-powered by sponsors while PhonePe, Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), Unacademy, Pharmeasy, Livspace, Swiggy, and Parle Agro have signed on as associate sponsors.
The platform is estimated to have earned ad revenue of Rs 370-380 crore from IPL 2020. The projected ad revenue for Disney+ Hotstar is higher than 2020 since the streaming platform was not able to fully sell its inventory last year, the source said.
The tournament will be streamed on Disney+ Hotstar in five languages – English, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, and Tamil and will be exclusively available to subscribers of Disney+ Hotstar VIP (Rs 399 for 12 months) and Disney+ Hotstar Premium (Rs 1499 for 12 months).
