How IPL &T20 WC have boosted growth of fantasy cricket industry

The love for fantasy cricket in India is skyrocketing. There are several reasons for India’s sudden fanaticism for the game. While the pandemic had already spurred the Indian gaming ecosystem to new heights, initially the concentration was more on card games with daily cash grabs and popular competitive video games. However, the fantasy gaming market, which has an estimated 100 million users in the country, is making fast inroads, with IPL 14 and T20 World Cup only adding to the craze.

Fantasy sports website BalleBaazi.com, a property of Baazi Games, launched India’s first-ever National Fantasy Cricket Championship (NFCC) on October 23 and has already registered more than one million teams within the first five days, bowling away Co-Founder and CEO Saurabh Chopra and his team’s initial estimation.

“To be completely honest, we had much more conservative estimates, given that this is still a pretty alien concept in Indian gaming, and even esports in the country,” admits Chopra.

“Given that this is the first tournament of its kind in the country, we expected a total participation of three to four million teams, but given the sign-up in the first 18% of the tournament, we’ve revised that figure to 10 million now,” shares Chopra.

It wasn’t just would-be fantasy champions who’ve shown interest, but brands and advertisers too, with Chopra noting, “We haven’t really looked at inbound or outbound interest from or in sponsors, because we haven’t really been in that business, given that we previously concentrated on daily users who’d play for cash-out prizes. But we’ve been getting a lot of enquiries for brand associations because, as they tell us, they didn’t know it would be so big either.” These sponsors include brands like Argentinian-Uruguayan Astro Pay app which will act as the e-wallet as well as e-commerce and fashion brands such as The Man Company.  

The 23-days long multi-tier tournament will be hosted on BalleBaazi.com. The grand finale will be held on the same day as the final T20 World Cup match, November 14th, where 11 Fantasy Cricket Champions will be crowned who will meet the World Cup 2011 hero, Zaheer Khan, and 1st on the podium will win the championship trophy and a free trip to the Mecca of Cricket, Lord’s, England. The 10 other India’s best fantasy sports champions will take home a golden bat along with daily and exclusive leaderboard cash prizes.

Sunil Yadav, CEO of PlayerzPot, another popular fantasy sports platform which has seen rapid growth over this ‘festive’ cricket season, adds, “I think one big boost for fantasy cricket was that the T20 World Cup followed so closely after the IPL 14. Interest had been growing anyway, but that these two happened so near each other helped retain users, who then of course got their friends engaged too,” says

“Compared to pre-IPL, our revenues have increased by 30-40%, while user participation even more so. And it grows with every match. It’s hard to believe but the second Afghanistan vs Scotland match drew even more engagement and revenue than the opening India vs Pakistan match, so I think this world cup will end up being the most successful fantasy cricket ever,” celebrates Yadav.  

Indeed, fantasy cricket seems to be dominating sports news coverage second only to the world cup itself, with every fantasy cricket platform seeing enormous traction, and much hogging of Google trends. Earlier this week, JetSynthesys and Federation of Electronic Sports Associations of India (FEAI) announced the launch of the Real Cricket™ Championship. The tournament will see qualifiers in every state following which the state winners will participate in national tournaments leading up to a nationwide tournament. This tournament will be held under the aegis of FEAI. The registrations for the tournament will be opened and announced in the coming days.

Speaking about this tournament, Rajan Navani, Founder, JetSynthesys Pvt. Ltd. said, “Cricket enjoys widespread popularity in the country and remains a key focus for us. It is a celebrated sport that is entrenched within the DNA of Indians. In fact, its popularity and following is mirrored in the cricket skill-based gaming category. We wanted to bring together cricket and gaming very early on with the help of our games like Sachin Saga Cricket Champions and Real Cricket™. It's a pleasure to be able to host and inaugurate the Real Cricket™ Championship for Indian esports players with FEAI along with   Nautilus and Skyesports.”

As Yadav concludes, “It’s the same as the festive sales, when shoppers are jumping between e-commerce platforms to get the best deals. More and more users are going to jump between fantasy platforms for recognition and rewards.”