JioStar Anticipates Significant Growth in Ad Revenue from IPL 2025

With official media rights partner JioStar aiming for 1 billion viewers across TV and digital, the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, which is slated to run from March 22 to May 25, is expected to be the biggest season yet in terms of ad sales, according to a senior company official.

Several sponsors, including Campa, My11Circle, Birla Opus, SBI, Coca-Cola, Kent Fans, Amfi, Amul, Zupee, PhonePe, Jaquar Bath Fittings, and Asian Paints, have been signed on by JioStar for the 2025 Indian Premier League, according to media buyers.

"We are fairly certain that the 2025 Indian Premier League will be significantly larger than the 2024 one. This season, we want to reach one billion viewers," stated Ishan Chatterjee, Chief Business Officer, Sports Revenue, SMB & Creator at JioStar. He continued, "IPL has its own place in India's marketing calendar, and many brands plan their campaigns around it."

JioStar has separated the market for IPL advertisers into 40 groups. Typically, one or two major players per category dominate IPL advertising. However, Chatterjee pointed out that several brands are actively participating in each category this year, citing the paints and fantasy sports categories as examples.

In order to show how SMBs can use the IPL to expand their businesses through more precise audience targeting, the company recently held a roadshow in several cities. SMBs are already big advertisers on platforms owned by Meta and Google.

According to advertising executives, the IPL's steady viewership will continue to draw significant interest from advertisers, particularly as summer marketing budgets rise.

"The IPL offers advertisers a distinctive pan-India reach across demographics, much like India's Super Bowl." According to Mayank Shah, VP of Parle Products, "it successfully engages the male 15+ audience, which is otherwise difficult to reach through other platforms."

"While the IPL is expected to maintain its strong TV audience reach, the impact of its move behind a paywall on JioHotstar remains to be seen. We anticipated delta reach from digital, as TV has already achieved significant scale.

Chatterjee predicted that the IPL's ad inventory would be nearly sold out before the first match. "Our goal is to have the majority of the inventory booked before IPL begins. "Everything we've seen so far indicates we're on track," he said.

The IPL is estimated to have generated around Rs 4,000 crore in ad sales last year, with JioStar raising its ad rates by up to 15% for the current season.  In 2022, IPL surpassed Rs 4,000 crore in ad revenue across TV and digital platforms.

The media rights split between Star India (TV) and Viacom18 (Digital), now merged as JioStar, resulted in rate undercutting and stagnant IPL ad revenue since 2023.

However, media buyers expect a significant increase in ad revenue this year as a result of strong advertiser demand across multiple categories and the consolidation of media rights under JioStar after two years. IPL 2025 advertising categories include mobile phones, paints, fantasy sports, consumer appliances, BFSI, FinTech, and beverages.

"The IPL is a safe bet for most clients because it has consistent ratings when compared to bilateral and international cricket events. "The consolidation of IPL media rights will benefit JioStar," stated a senior media buyer.