Advertisers practise caution ahead of IPL’s 2023 season | WARC | The Feed

Advertisers practise caution ahead of IPL’s 2023 season

Disney’s Star and Reliance’s Viacom18 are finding that deal-making on Indian Premier League advertising inventory is taking a lot longer than usual, according to reports.

Why it matters

One of the most-watched sporting leagues on earth, with an expected streaming audience of 500m, the IPL is still hot property.

But it’s entering a new era with digital and TV rights now split. This means that the increasingly expensive rights to broadcast need to be paid for through higher ad rates, at a time when greater competition (especially when one is paid-for TV and the other free digital streaming) indicates that rights holders are likely to make a loss this year.

The other issue is the absence of consumer tech brands that have scaled back their marketing plans this year.

What’s going on

Sources tell the Economic Times that a significant proportion of the total inventory across the two broadcasters remains unsold with under a month to go before the league starts.

• Disney Star, which owns the TV rights, has sold between 80-90% of inventory for the season, according to the paper.
• Viacom18, the digital rights holder, has not said how much is sold.

Effectively, it sounds like advertisers are playing a canny game in waiting to see what extras and bonuses broadcasters might be willing to offer when push comes to shove, especially considering last year’s early-season viewership dip as the country reopened after pandemic-era restrictions.

Sourced from the Economic Times, WARC

[Image: Indian Premier League]