Disney Hotstar to stream Cricket World Cup for free in India

• Disney paid $3 billion for Cricket World Cup rights
• Viacom18 offered free IPL streaming earlier this year

Disney Star will stream live coverage of the 2023 Cricket World Cup for free to mobile phone users in India, hoping to attract more consumers to its struggling Hotstar service.

It will be the first time the over-50s tournament will be held in India since 2011, when matches were distributed across the subcontinent, and Disney has approached the International Cricket Council (ICC) for both linear and digital rights. They paid an amount of US$3 billion. This and his 2027 edition of the contest.

Disney acquired the Star Sports television network and Hotstar streaming service as part of a US$71 billion acquisition of 21 companies.^cent In 2019, Century Fox believed cricket would be a key driver of subscriptions for both services.

However, despite retaining the linear rights to the Indian Premier League (IPL) last year, Disney lost out on the streaming rights to Viacom18, and Viacom18 recently announced that it would not be able to broadcast the Indian national team’s matches outside of ICC competitions. It also secured worldwide rights. With the loss of IPL, Hotstar’s subscribers have decreased by a third of his.

Disney hopes that by offering free mobile streaming, it will attract more users to the Hotstar ecosystem, generate a huge audience, and bring in greater advertising revenue. Disney has sublicensed the linear broadcast rights for the Cricket World Cup to Zee TV, in a deal believed to be worth around $1.5 billion.

The tournament starts on the 5th^th 48 matches will be played in October, culminating in the final to be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on the 19th.^th November.

Sports professionals say…

With a population of over 1 billion people, India represents a huge market for rights holders and broadcasters. However, Indian consumers are reluctant to pay for premium content as the pay TV market is relatively small compared to the population.

Less than 250 million households in India have access to television, but there are more than 1 billion active mobile subscriptions. Disney had hoped that advances in connectivity availability and quality, as well as premium rights to cricket, would help Hotstar reach 100 million subscribers.

With Viacom18 securing key rights, Disney is now looking to replicate its rival’s free streaming experiment to generate viewership and commercial revenue. Improving the financial performance of the India operations will be critical prior to a potential sale.

India’s status as the hosts and favorites to win the tournament should generate huge interest and a potential audience of hundreds of millions. However, it is arguable that the IPL is better suited for success, given its shorter format and interest that does not depend on the fate of a single team.