IPL 2021 live streaming sees 25% drop in viewership in opening game compared to 2020

IPL (Indian Premier League) is one of the most important events for India. The entire cricket tournament is treated as a festival across the nation. Every year people get excited about the Indian Premier League because of the powerpack entertainment and brilliant cricket during the tournament. The first match of every year’s IPL always brings in big numbers in terms of viewership. But this year’s reports suggest that the scenario is completely changed as the numbers are not that impressive.

IPL 2021 Witnessed Drop in Viewership
According to the latest report, the IPL 2021 live streaming has witnessed a downfall in its online viewership, the opening match of the IPL 2021 failed to add some big numbers in online views. The first match of the IPL 2021 was between the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 9th, 2021.

It has managed to garner a total of 6.7 million viewers on the Disney+ Hotstar OTT platform. This is way lesser than last year’s Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings opening match, which had scored some 8.4 million viewers in the first match. The first match of IPL 2021 saw a drop of 25 percent in viewership compared to IPL 2020.

The IPL live streaming was introduced to make it convenient for the user to stream the match from anywhere on their smart devices. However, it seems that the move is failing to lure more audiences. Going with the records, the highest viewership match in terms of numbers on the Disney+ Hotstar was the IPL 2019 final. The match was between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings which has marked 18 million views.

Furthermore, BARC India suggests that the IPL 2020 had recorded a total of 405 million viewership. Considering the number, the cricket tournament has gradually seen a growth in terms of number and it was expected that the opening match of the IPL 2021 will be record-breaking. However, it doesn’t seem to happen as per the expectation. It seems that the blame for the low numbers has landed in the lap of the current pandemic situation, but we can’t deny the fact that 2020 was the worst year in the history of IPL but still it manages to bring impressive numbers. MySmartPrice