Not ‘just cricket’, football and kabbadi getting eyeballs too

• The cricket audience in India is around 612 million and makes up 90% of the country’s sports audience.
• Football too has a 45% share of the sports audience of India, says a report by Ormax.
• Wrestling, Hockey, Badminton, Athletics, Volleyball and Boxing also have over 100 million viewers.
  

India is known for cricket and cricket is known to almost the entirety of the Indian audience. And, why not? Around half of Indians — 612 million — are glued to the 22 players on the field.

In a refreshing development, however, a recent report by Ormax indicates that the sports audience in India goes beyond cricket.

While cricket does get more than the lion’s share i.e., 90% of the 678 million sports audience, others are gaining ground too. Football audiences have grown to a whopping 305 million in India, which is a 45% share of the total sports viewers. Kabaddi also has garnered around 280 million viewers now.

Wrestling or WWE, Hockey, Badminton, Athletics, Volleyball and Boxing — all have over 100 million viewers, says The Ormax Sports Audience Report: 2024. Car racing, with 97 million viewers, almost made the cut.

A growing pie

The report defines 'Sports Audience’ as someone who watched sports content on TV or OTT in the last year for at least 30 minutes.

“With an increase in digital consumption, TV viewership is no longer an accurate way of estimating sports consumption in a large and heterogeneous country like India. This report is a part of our initiative to build industry data using primary audience research across various categories,” said Shailesh Kapoor, founder & CEO of Ormax Media.

Viacom 18 had bagged the television as well as digital rights to the national cricket team’s bilateral matches. Jio Cinema also streamed Cricket World Cup 2023 for free — increasing the digital viewers of the matches manifold, last year.

Franchise with the ‘most recall’

The Ormax report also picked the sports franchises with the most recall. Chennai Super Kings bagged the most recalled franchise in cricket, followed by Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Rajasthan Royals, and Kolkata Knight Riders.

In football, the franchise with the most recall was Manchester United. In Kabaddi, Patna Pirates took up the top spot.

Cricket, however, does rule the roost when it comes to India’s most favourite sports stars. Virat Kohli is the most popular sportsperson in India, while MS Dhoni is ranked second, despite having retired from professional cricket. Rohit Sharma came in third and Sachin Tendulkar came in fifth.

The fourth and sixth sports however went to international football stars — Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, respectively. Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra came in seventh, and footballer Sunil Chhetri came in eighth amongst India’s favourite sports stars.