During the pandemic, I turned to sports in a big way. The distraction it provided kept me from staring too long at the flaming trainwreck playing out across the world. The challenge quickly shifted from identifying a distraction to figuring out where to watch it. In days gone by, watching sports inevitably meant a choice between Star Sports (now owned by Disney) and Sony Sports. Today, however, there are a plethora of platforms, all with their own sports offerings.
Take English football, for example. If you want to watch the Premier League, that's on Star Sports and its OTT sibling Disney+ Hotstar. If you want to watch the FA Cup, that's on Sony or its digital cousin SonyLIV. The Carabao Cup? That's on Reliance-owned TV network Viacom 18's various entertainment channels or its streaming platform, Voot.
Reliance is almost never referred to as a dark horse, but in this case it certainly is. While most sports in India are consumed primarily via TV channels, Reliance doesn't have a single channel dedicated to sports. And while it has acquired the rights to a wide albeit disparate selection of sports across its telecom arm Jio, Viacom 18, and Voot, its production abilities are, quite frankly, abysmal.
Now, having already made itself synonymous with Indian sports through owning/sponsoring teams and organising tournaments, it wants to be the sports broadcast leader in the country as well. Already, it has hoovered up the rights to three out of Europe's top five football leagues. Last week, it scooped up the rights to the 2022 FIFA World Cup—the most-watched sporting event on the planet.
There's only one bastion left for Reliance to breach—cricket. We at Mumbai Multimedia Studio has learnt that the company has its eyes on the three most lucrative sports properties in India—the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Indian cricket team’s home matches, and the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) tournaments, which include the World Cup.
Bagging these properties won't be easy or without competition, but as it shows in our today's article that they will be critical to Reliance realising its sports broadcast ambitions. It is a must-read, expertly charting how India's largest conglomerate is laying the groundwork to blow its competition out of the water..
