OTT platforms in India have now shifted their focus towards live sports coverage to gather a greater number of audiences. At first, Hotstar came front, acquiring many major sports streaming rights like that of Indian Premier League (IPL), ICC Tournaments, Indian Cricket Matches, Pro Kabaddi League etc. This gave the platform a boost in the number of users as these are some of the most watched sports leagues in India. Other platforms too, followed the same steps and now 51% of the OTT platform investments are invested on buying sports rights.
With the upsurge of internet users in India, people started to avoid watching TV and got more invested in streaming content on their phones, computers etc. Their preference in watching sports also changed from TV to these platforms. Hotstar tackled this and started covering some major sports leagues that are most watched in India. This made Hotstar the biggest streaming platform in India surpassing even Netflix and Prime Video. Now, other platforms have also chosen the path. Sony has the rights in most of the cricketing contents, NBL etc. Jio Cinema has come forward acquiring the rights of almost all the major T20 cricket leagues, Olympics and FIFA as well. It also recently took the IPL rights from Hotstar. This led to a boost in the number of users of Jio Cinema.
As per survey though, this boost in user number is arbitrary. Usually, the users download the platform to watch a particular sports league and as it is over, they uninstall it. As the platform does not align to the user’s content interests, they no longer feel the desire to use the platform to watch content, and retention of users drops. In many Indian middle-class families, they used to buy a Hotstar subscription for two months just to watch IPL (when it had the rights) and then they used to cancel the subscription. The same happened with the world cup as well. Still platforms are using this maneuver to increase the audience base. Even Prime Video has come forward to acquire sporting rights of some leagues and is trying to gather audiences based on that. Zee 5 too acquired the rights for Calcutta Football League. Several other platforms are also working to acquire sports streaming rights as of now.
Sports leagues usually last for a month or two, if the OTT platforms will focus only on them (as they are currently doing) the users will increase, but either they will cancel subscription after the league will end, or will completely uninstall the platform. A good balance between content and sports will be the key to gain dominance in the OTT industry ahead.