IPL 2023 Auction Kicks Off 35% Increase In Star Sports Viewership

The TATA IPL Auction, which began on December 23 in Kochi, got off to a great start, as television broadcaster Star Sports saw a 35 per cent increase in the total number of viewers for their coverage. 50 million people watched the auction coverage on Star Sports and 1.59 billion minutes were consumed overall, 10 per cent more than at the previous mini-sale in 2021.

According to the broadcaster, the auction attracted substantial television audiences in major cities and important markets like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Gujarat. Male and female audiences in urban areas and megacities who are also wealthy contributed significantly to the auction's strong viewership.

The TATA IPL mini-auction coverage on Star Sports outperformed that of the FIFA World Cup Finals, which had a reach of 32 million viewers on TV, to put the viewership into context.

Three players, Sam Curran (18.50 Cr to Punjab Kings), Cameron Green (17.5 Cr to Mumbai Indians) and Ben Stokes (16.25 Cr to Chennai Super Kings), forced teams to break the bank in order to secure the top talent, setting new records for buys over the previous high of 16 crores.

In order to give viewers insightful commentary during the auction, Star Sports carefully selected the greatest specialists from around the world. Ian Bishop, Tom Moody, Aaron Finch, Simon Katich, David Hussey, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Subramaniam Badrinath, Irfan Pathan, MSK Prasad and Amol Mazumdar are among the illustrious names on the list. The broadcaster also welcomed ardent supporters and fan groups from all over the nation to the studio to participate in an out-of-this-world experience during the auction.

As pioneers of regional language broadcast, Star Sports brought the auction to viewers in five different languages – English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. The social campaign #AuctionStar which was run by Star Sports on Twitter trended as high as #3 and stayed in the top 10 trends throughout the auction.

As the countdown for TATA IPL 2023 begins, TV goes into the season with strong momentum owing to its dominating scale in the country.