The Indian sports economy is undergoing a structural shift shaped by digital consumption, mobile-first behaviour, and fragmented audience patterns.
The Comscore State of Sports 2025 India Edition report outlines a decisive recalibration of where, how, and why Indian fans consume sports. The findings confirm that the smartphone has become the country’s primary stadium, social platforms the primary arena of engagement, and athletes the most influential media properties in the ecosystem.
India contributes 118 million unique digital sports viewers, forming a significant portion of the global online sports audience of 668 million. However, the defining insight lies not in scale alone but distribution. Ninety percent of Indian digital sports viewers consume sports exclusively on mobile. Desktop usage is negligible, with only 1% identified as desktop-only. This reaffirms that mobile isn’t merely a delivery medium it is the core foundation of sports engagement and commercial strategy in the country.
The shift is supported by the infrastructural and economic context. India’s low mobile data cost, averaging ₹7.60 per GB, removes consumption barriers and accelerates streaming. Smartphone penetration is projected to reach 888 million users, while OTT platforms continue to scale, offering 4K streams, multi-language feeds, and interactive interfaces.
The IPL generated 350 billion minutes of consumption, while even Test cricket, traditionally considered slower in digital impact, drew 170 million fans and 65 billion watch minutes during the Anderson–Tendulkar Trophy. These figures position digital platforms at parity, if not ahead of conventional broadcast in sustained audience engagement.
However, audience behaviour is deeply fragmented. The report defines this through the “55-42-3” model. Fifty-five percent of Indian sports fans engage exclusively through social platforms. Forty-two percent consume through proprietary digital platforms such as OTT services and sports apps. Only three percent overlap between the two. This indicates that social and platform audiences are not different touchpoints of the same user, but largely separate populations with distinct expectations and consumption patterns.
The 55% social-exclusive audience prioritizes immediacy: short-form highlights, commentary threads, real-time reactions, and viral narratives. Their engagement is participatory and conversational. On the other hand, the 42% proprietary-platform audience favors long-form and immersive content full-match viewing, statistical breakdowns, and detailed analysis. The difference in attention patterns demands that publishers, broadcasters, and rights holders adopt dual-channel content strategies rather than expecting one form to influence the other.
The report further finds that fans now spend 20% more time on non-live sports content compared to live matches. This shifts value from event-based programming to narrative continuity behind-the-scenes footage, athlete stories, tactical explainer clips, and regional-language analysis. OTT platforms and leagues are already adapting.
JioStar’s Follow the Blues series is highlighted as a case where narrative content sustained engagement beyond live play. Regional-language content is also central, with 77% of fans preferring vernacular formats, particularly in Tier 2 and Tier 3 digital markets.
Commercial alignment is shaped by the audience’s broader digital lifestyle. Indian sports fans overlap significantly with consumer economy segments: 96% also engage with retail platforms and 90% with financial services platforms. This overlap strengthens sports as a gateway to transactional behaviour.
The report states that 71% of Gen Z sports fans have made at least one purchase influenced by sports advertising. The implication is clear: sports engagement is no longer just entertainment it drives commerce, with measurable conversion impact.
Athletes are now the strongest digital media entities in the ecosystem. Individual players outpace leagues and teams in engagement frequency and emotional influence. Virat Kohli averages 2.6 million actions per post on Instagram, compared to 321,000 for the Indian Premier League’s official handles. Hardik Pandya and Rohit Sharma also maintain engagement rates multiple times higher than team accounts. This reinforces the rising commercial and narrative centrality of athlete IP and suggests that brand investments will continue shifting from league sponsorships to individual athlete partnerships.
Yet, the market carries volatility. Regulatory disruption in the online gaming sector specifically the imposition of 28% GST and effective restriction of real-money gaming has reshaped digital sponsorship landscapes. This resulted in Dream11 withdrawing from its BCCI title sponsorship and pivoting to an advertising-supported free-to-play format. The episode highlights vulnerability tied to policy fluctuations and underscores the need for diversified, non-regulated revenue channels.
The report concludes by framing strategic imperatives. Rights holders must unify measurement frameworks across mobile, OTT, and social to correctly represent audience value to advertisers. Media organizations need to structurally separate teams focused on social velocity content from teams developing platform-centric premium content. And sustained growth lies in converting a portion of the 55% social-exclusive audience into the higher-engagement, higher-monetization 42% proprietary cohort.
India’s sports economy remains on track to reach a projected $130 billion market value by 2030, growing at nearly twice the rate of national GDP. The challenge ahead is not of reach, but of converting fragmented attention into structured, measurable, and commercially stable engagement.
The next phase of sports growth in India will be defined not only by who watches, but how, where, and why they choose to engage.
