Mumbai: The uncertain global economic conditions and competition between Jio Cinema and Star Sports for advertiser budgets have resulted in a weak start to IPL 2023. On the opening day, the number of TV advertisers was 40 per cent lower than last year, with only 31 live match advertisers against 52 last year. Digital advertising fared worse, with a 70 per cent drop in advertisers on Day 1 compared to last year when Disney+ Hotstar held the rights. As per media buyers, who carry out competition audit, for digital, the number of advertisers on Day 1 this year stood at just under 50, compared to 160 last year.

It is worth noting that TV and digital advertisers often have different budget profiles, with larger advertisers typically choosing TV and smaller advertisers opting for digital. However, many notable advertisers from last year's IPL, such as Byjus, Cred, Muthoot, and Netmeds, were absent this year.

Despite the drop in advertisers, media buying agencies expect spending to pick up as viewership data from the opening match has been encouraging. As per Barc, Star Sports saw a 29 per cent increase in TV ratings, with viewership reaching 140 million on the opening day. Jio Cinema reported a peak concurrency of 1.6 crore whereas Star Sports recorded 5.6 crores. Media reports suggest that Star Sports had clocked Rs 2,200 crore in ad revenues just ahead of the start of IPL 2023, while Jio had achieved Rs 1,400 crore.

It is important to note that TV ad rates have seen a decrease this year, and the number of TV sponsors has decreased from 16 to 12 since last year's IPL. Disney Star holds the TV broadcasting rights for IPL, having spent $3 billion for the period from 2023-2027. Last year's IPL had around 100 TV advertisers and 200 advertisers on Digital in total.