Viacom18 took the industry and stakeholders by surprise a fortnight ago when it announced that the Indian Premier League 2023 will be streamed live in India for free on the JioCinema app.

After all, this is the first time in the history of IPL that the league would be streamed live for free. Earlier, platforms like Disney+ Hotstar, Airtel, Vodafone and Jio required one to take a paid subscription to watch a live stream of the IPL.

“A total of 70 league matches and four playoff games will be played over 52 days. This means to watch all 74 matches on mobile or connected TV one would require data worth Rs 2,072, which may not be exactly cheap for a majority of the Indian users,” an industry expert said.

Viacom18 hopes to emerge as a major disruptor in the IPL telecast universe. The media network seeks to reach 500 million users via its free IPL offerings. Reliance Jio’s active subscriber base currently stands at around 425 million, as per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s latest subscriber data.

Explaining the data cost factor, a Jio official said, “We don’t expect all users to watch full IPL matches on the mobile phone. On average, people would watch less than an hour or so, for which roughly 0.5 GB is required. This much data is often available with most data plans of all the operators.”

Another Viacom18 official said: “We expect telecom players to offer cheaper data plans around the IPL as special promotions.” Incidentally, Jio’s own plan in this regard is under wraps, as of now. e4m could not immediately verify these claims.

The tournament will also be streamed in 12 languages, including English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bhojpuri, Odia, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada.