“We are just getting started…,” declared Sanjog Gupta, CEO – Sports & Live Experiences at JioStar, on Monday at the second edition of the SVG Summit India 2025.
Highlighting how JioStar—born from the merger of Disney+ Hotstar and JioCinema—is rapidly redefining the future of sports broadcasting and live entertainment in India, Gupta said that the merger of JioCinema and Disney+Hotstar happened in 90 days and boasts of 280 million subscribers and counting.
At the Summit, where JioStar showcased its technology and how it will influence the way sports content is produced and delivered, Gupta underscored JioStar’s record-breaking performance across both digital and linear television.
“JioStar broke every Cricket viewership record across TV and Digital – most watched test series ever, highestever rated multi-nation ODI tournament, highest-ever live concurrency for a sporting event, biggest ever Women’s Premier League (WPL), strongest ever start to the IPL…” Gupta said, adding that Star Network has added 3 million homes as new subscribers in less than two months.
Gupta also announced the launch of a new business vertical, ‘Live Experiences’, aimed at blending large-scale community celebration with storytelling and next-gen interactivity.
“We have also launched a new vertical – Live Experiences – which looks to combine the aggregate power of collective celebrations, shared passion and communal belonging with culture-shaping storytelling and next generation engagement features,” he said during his keynote address.
Outlining four core expectations that guide JioStar’s internal culture and future partnerships, Gupta said, first is to think about consumer night and day, second is to be bold and humble, third is to chase creativity and not just ideas; and the fourth one is to execute relentlessly.
“Think Consumer, Night and Day- Consumers mostly don’t know what they want but if you look hard enough, they give out enough signals for what they might.
“Be bold, nimble and humble. Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage that counts. Third is to chase creativity and not just ideas. You can barely influence where the next big idea will come from, but you can influence whether or not it will come to you. And lastly, execute relentlessly. Great ideas die at the altar of poor execution… even a dead pixel can ruin the entire frame,” he said.
Gupta also introduced MaxView 2.0, the next evolution in mobile sports streaming. Designed to optimise vertical viewing, it lets users swipe up for highlights and swipe left for personalised camera angles—without ever leaving the live stream.
“You can swipe up while watching MaxView to catch all the key moments… and with just one tap, return to the live game. Swipe left to view different angles, different feeds—even HeroCam perspectives tailored to you,” he explained.
Since its quiet rollout, MaxView IPL has already delivered a 25% spike in user engagement, proving that innovation isn’t just about novelty—it’s about intuitively enhancing how fans connect with the game, Gupta said.
“As the screen is getting smaller… the experience is getting bigger. The screen is mobile or mini, but the experience is mega,” Gupta said, paraphrasing a recent remark by the Prime Minister at the WAVES conference.
Gupta offered a new paradigm for audience segmentation—moving away from mass content delivery to hyper personalised experiences. “Ideally, if technology allows and our capacity allows, we would like to serve one fan as many… not many fans as one,” he said.
He urged the industry to embrace the “market of one” and to treat fans not as a uniform group, but as individuals with unique preferences that evolve with time, context, and device.
“Let’s hope for the market of one, and let’s hope for one fan at a time,” he signed off.
The second edition of the SVG India Summit was hosted by StarLab and presented by JioStar, the summit focused on the future of sports media, with sessions covering topics such as cloud workflows, generative AI, and immersive fan experiences.
Apart from Gupta, key participants included Mike Davies of Fox Sports US; Rajat Nigam, Group CTO, Network18; Prashant Khanna, Head, Production Services and Technology, Jiostar; Rajul Negi of JioGames, Mustafa Ghouse of Centre Court Capital, and Kiran Karnik, former NASSCOM president.
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