Long Read: 10 franchises, at least 50 cricketers united online fantasy games, the IPL’s new cash cow

Kolkata Knight Riders are one of the most valued brands in the Indian Premier League, and their shirts have often reflected the sectors going through a period of boom. In 2008, when the IPL was launched, the prominently-placed Nokia logo on the purple jersey indicated how momentous the year was for the smartphone industry. Fourteen years later, they tell the story of the growth of another industry – fantasy gaming.
On Saturday, when KKR open their 2022 campaign against Chennai Super Kings at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, their players will sport shirts with the logo of real-money gaming app WinZO emblazoned on them. And it’s not only them – each of the 10 franchises and at least 50 former and current players – from legends like Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli to relative newcomers like Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rahul Tewatia, and even BCCI president Sourav Ganguly – are associated with real-money gaming platforms, asserting the rise of a sector that for most of its exence in India operated in a legally grey area.

First Match of the season and KKR hai Taiyaar 🔥#WinZO #KKRHaitaiyaar #IPL #Fantasy #Mobilegaming pic.twitter.com/7hTcaEsRlr
— WinZO (@winzoofficial) March 26, 2022
“For one standalone category to go all out like this, it’s unprecedented,” says sports marketing consultant Abhishek Ponia.
Given the IPL’s unique space and positioning in the Indian sport’s scene – no other domestic competition captures eyeballs in such a manner – it has invariably been a vehicle for different products and brands who often plan and design heavy-duty campaigns around the league.
Over the years, “a lot of the money has flown in from traditional to new-age brands,” Ponia says, with digital start-ups now a dominant force.
While cryptocurrency is talked about as the next big trend, going examples seen across the sports industry in the West, no category has been as in-your-face as fantasy sports through its advertising blitzkrieg, especially during the IPL.
As per a Mint report, fantasy gaming platforms spent roughly Rs 200 crore just on TV and digital ad campaigns during the previous season of the IPL while some platforms spent as much as 70 percent of their promotional budget during the league. “I haven’t seen anything like this,” Santosh Desai, a social commentator and leading ad professional, says. “Until a few years ago, I don’t think anyone would have remotely imagined fantasy sports would be spending the kind of money that they are.”

Evident conflicts
Desai points at the ‘adjacency to the business’ – the platforms pay money to players and teams to endorse their games and attract users, who pay money to the platforms and predict the performance of the players and teams.
The legality of this business model, which bears resemblance to betting, has been challenged in multiple courts. Yet, their rise has been staggering, even – rather, especially – during the pandemic. The recent favourable verdicts, wherein the courts have decreed that these games require a certain level of skill and hence do not amount to betting, have only added to their momentum.
According to consultancy services firm KPMG, the number of online gamers in India is expected to rise from 360 million in 2020 to 510 million this year. Last year, the industry generated revenues of $1.8 billion and that figure is likely to increase to $3.84 billion over the next five years. Dream 11, which has a sponsorship tie-up with more than half of the IPL teams and has half-a-dozen cricketers on its roster, reported revenue of Rs 2,070 crore for FY2020, according to Fintrackr.
“Venture capital liquidity has come to the fore and there has been heavy funding of start-ups, especially digital start-ups,” Ponia says. “They have been able to put that money into IPL to be able to market themselves at that scale and level. It’s common that if in a particular industry one company goes after it in a big way, the others don’t want to miss out else their market share will get affected. Hence, if Dream 11 puts in a lot of money, others will do the same.”
As the competing platforms scramble for eyeballs, the IPL, its franchises, the players and even the broadcasters have been the beneficiaries, financially speaking. And with their aggressive marketing tactics, the fantasy gaming platforms have been able to multiply their revenues through user fees.

‘Combining passions’
“In a sense, it combines passions – one of which is subterranean, gambling – and the other is cricket. It puts together these two things, and does so in a much more legitimate and socially acceptable way than it is otherwise the case,” Desai says, adding that it has also changed how fans engage with the game. “It’s just so easy to do, an ideal time-pass. It hooks you in.”
The addictiveness of these games, which are easily available on phones, has been a cause for concern. A New York Times report earlier this year chronicled the struggle of a fantasy gamer in the US, who began playing casually but became a compulsive bettor as years passed .
It’s something that is speculated to happen in the Indian context as well. Ponia feels the rise of online gaming platforms is a “stepping stone towards the day that sports betting could be legalised in India”.
“There has been a surge in surrogate betting brands. This implies there is heavy interest from Indian users in betting websites,” he says.
In November 2020 then finance miner Anurag Thakur – now in charge of the information and broadcasting, and sports minries – was quoted as saying Press Trust of India that his “suggestion will be to legalise betting and gambling activities.” Days later, Niti Aayog, the government’s think-tank on policy issues, released a draft that spoke about regulating online fantasy sports.

MoS @ianuragthakur on the issue of legalising betting: pic.twitter.com/LeOfWyNJki
— Office of Mr. Anurag Thakur (@Anurag_Office) November 19, 2020
The government has made it compulsory for gaming platforms to have proper disclaimers in their ads regarding the financial risks involved. While these warnings appear along with the ads on TV, such disclaimers seem to be missing when logos of these companies appear on team jerseys.
Desai says the fantasy gaming sector “needs an injection of responsibility because of its inherent nature”.“It’s not the easiest thing in the world to do but it’s desirable to do,” he says. “Wherever there’s commercial potential, everything else becomes subservient. There’s enough the IPL has going for itself without necessarily needing this to be an important part of it. The BCCI should have its eye out and draw some boundaries.”
Right now, however, it’s all a fantasy land.