What the restart of the IPL heralds for the advertising industry

The first half of the Indian Premier league 2021 Season, widely considered one of the most popular T20 leagues with top players from around the world competing for the crown, had unravelled some really intriguing contests and high octane clashes.

Now after a short hiatus, the cricketing festival resumes its second leg, and with it brings activity on and off the pitch, and associated interest from brands looking to capitalise on India’s biggest sporting spectacle. We talk to Kanav Sud, Business Head at Sportskeeda on what this restart of the IPL means and how brands are capitalising on this.

 IPL has come back for round 2 this year, what is the sentiment like on the ground?

- The event brings a lot of excitement from both audiences and brands, we’re all very excited about the IPL finally resuming and Sportskeeda is poised to bring the excitement to the users yet again with a series of innovations that promise an experience like never before. While a lot of speculation also loomed around the loss of momentum in terms of advertising spends due to the season being paused, the story on ground for us has proved to be quite different. We’re seeing a great response from brands looking to advertise on our platform and get a slice of the limited inventory remaining for this season.

Do you think this leg will be bigger than the 1st leg we had in April?

- Absolutely! As with any tournament the excitement and competitiveness builds towards the latter half of the tournament with playoffs and knockout matches lined up. The second phase also coincides with the festive season, and the IPL being nothing short of a festival for us Indians, we have seen a lot of advertising money being moved from other genres to IPL advertising. For brands it's a no brainer to associate with the event and capitalize on this lucrative opportunity to reach out to their audiences, especially through a platform like Sportskeeda that recently became the 2nd largest sports website in India (Source: As per Comscore's Mobile Metrix Media Trend Report, India Data, Sports Category, July 2020 to Jan 2021).

What have you been focusing on at Sportskeeda this IPL season?

IPL is definitely the biggest bonanza for Sports media and we have a strong base of over 60Mn of users who flock to our website on a monthly basis apart from a strong and widespread social media following.

What are some categories of advertisers that are working with you?

This season, we’re happy to have some of the top brands across Fantasy platforms, Food Delivery, Ed Tech, Banking etc partnering with us, like Swiggy, Playerzpot, Upgrad, HDFC, KFC and many more. As always it is an absolute pleasure to serve them. We are excited to see how our new offerings help the clients in reaching out and engaging with their core target audience and hoping to make these endeavors a grand success.