MUMBAI: Shifted out of India, to the UAE, in the middle of a raging pandemic and questions pouring on whether the Indian Premier League‘s (IPL) 13th edition would find takers, the BARC-Nielsen report suggests that numbers for the league’s 13th edition went through the roof in the first week.
IPL 13’s opening week saw a 15% growth in viewing minutes as compared to the 2019 edition, with 269 million viewers across 86m households watching the league in the first seven days. The numbers suggest one out of three TV viewers watched the IPL 13 live in the opening week.
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A break-up of this data suggests, 147m (39%) of this viewership is urban and 145m (34%) is male viewership. A good 40% of the overall viewership, pegged at around 70m, is dedicated to the socio-economic classification, a new rating system devised by BARC.
Further, the highest advertisement volume was recorded during the 37 weeks of the lockdown and continues to be higher than the peak period volume. During this peak period, the average time spent in front of the television screen went up by 27% and a further 10% once the IPL got underway. Those tracking developments say, India has still not come close to its peak festival season — Dussehra and Diwali — and expect the numbers to rise going forward.
The biggest question looming over the IPL, vis-a-vis all other sports properties in India and around the world, was whether they could sustain in a market that has gone cold because of lengthy lockdowns, owing to Covid-19. While the pandemic continues to test India and the world’s patience and immunity levels, sport has certainly shown itself to be the great unifier that it has always been.

In plain numbers, the first week of the IPL this year has registered 11m more viewers per match, compared to last year. In that, and not surprisingly, Hindi viewership has been ranked number one. In line with the viewership, the report suggests that the total advertisement volume for the opening week also went up by 15% compared to the previous IPL with the second, fourth and fifth match recording the highest jump.
Further along these lines, the advertiser-count too went up by 19% and the brand-count went up by 22%. In fact, the report says smartphone usage went up by 8% in the opening week of IPL as compared to the recent weeks while the video streaming has gone up by 13%. The BARC-Nielsen report says a total of 60.6 billion viewing minutes, across seven matches and 21 channels was recorded.
The average impression per game in the opening week of the tournament went up from 25.8m in 2018 to 32.2m in 2019 and to a massive 39m in 2020, thus recording a 21% jump. The opening game of the tournament, between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, recorded 52m impressions while the other matches in the first week of the IPL garnered more than 34m impressions, viewed by over 100m viewers on a match-to-match basis.
These numbers should come as a shot in the arm for the sports industry as it continues to find ways and innovate while the world battles Covid-19. With technology beginning to play a greater role in sport with each passing season, the spike in television numbers will be music to the ears of the sports industry, removing all doubts whatsoever about its potential to catch eyeballs in a live setting.
Watch IPL 13 opening-week viewership sees new high, 15% growth in viewing minutes