Mumbai : The current economic conditions and competition between JioCinema and Star Sports for advertiser budgets have resulted in a weak start to IPL 2023, with the number of TV advertisers being 40% lower than last year's opening day. Only 31 live match advertisers were present, as compared to 52 last year. The number of sponsors on TV has also decreased from 16 last year to 12 this year, with one sponsor associated with the third match.

However, BARC India reported that Star Sports saw a 29% increase in TV ratings, with viewership reaching 140 million on the opening day. In comparison, JioCinema reported a peak concurrency of 1.6 crore, whereas Star Sports recorded 5.6 crore. Media reports suggest that Star Sports had clocked ₹2,200 crore in ad revenues just ahead of the start of IPL 2023, while Jio had achieved ₹1,400 crore.

One possible reason for the decrease in TV advertisers could be the digital broadcasting rights of IPL being given to Viacom-18, which has captured a major chunk of TV ad revenue. Over 125 advertisers have tied up with Viacom-18 for digital advertising, bypassing TV.

It is still too early to determine the complete picture of IPL revenue, as the tournament progresses, more information will become available. However, the decrease in TV advertisers will have a direct impact on the revenue of TV broadcasters