Sports content consumed by 136 million Indians on TV or OTT

In the section on viewing behaviour, the report looks at the TV vs digital consumption of sports. While 44 per cent Indian sports fans watch live sports only on TV, a sizeable 36 per cent are using both traditional and digital media to watch live sports, while the remaining 20% are watching exclusively on digital. The report also covers the preferred commentary languages in India, reported by various geographies and demographics.

Shailesh Kapoor, founder & CEO, Ormax Media, said, “Viewership numbers, especially from television, are not an accurate representation of the fanbase of any sport, as India is predominantly a single-TV nation where a lot of sports viewing is passive in nature. Through this report, we aim to fill in the need gap for reliable data on the size and the profile of the ‘real’ sports fans, who are actively watching and engaged with the sport.”

In the section titled ‘Active Sports Players in India’, the report estimates that 317.8 million (about 23 per cent of India’s population) Indians are playing at least one outdoor sport actively in their life currently. While cricket, football and badminton take the top three positions as the most played sports in India, volleyball and kho-kho feature also prominently in the list too, with 56 million and 19 million active players, respectively. Business Standard