Cricket Lights Up Mobile Screens

Preparing the wicket

Cast your mind back to late January and early February 2025. In the buildup to the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy tournament, England toured India to play in five T20 matches, and three one-day internationals (ODIs), the 50-over format of the game. The previous T20 World Champions faced off with the current holders of that crown, both hoping to find some red-hot form for the upcoming Champions Trophy. It is this series of matches that I will be examining cricket’s impact on some selected sports properties as well as the match broadcaster via Comscore’s custom data.

India is a mobile-first market. According to Comscore’s MMX Multi-Platform data, in February 2025, over 95% of all minutes spent on the internet in India were on a mobile device, so it only makes sense to examine any impact these cricket matches made on the mobile ecosystem.

But how will you be quantifying any impact you ask? Well, the methodology is straightforward. We know the exact date and time of the matches and so can use Comscore’s panel assets to find the number of unique visitors to a site, as well as the total minutes spent on the site during a specific time window of an event. We can also create control windows looking at the number of unique visitors and duration at the exact same time and day of the week as the live event, merely in the weeks preceding the event to create an average audience and therefore gauge the ‘typical’ usage of a site on that day of the week and at that time of day. Then we simply compare the variance of the event day’s audience and time spent with the baseline ‘control’ and voila, we can show the impact a live event had on the mobile audience of a site.

In this case, the sites (and their Comscore equivalent entity) we examined were: Cricbuzz ([S] Cricbuzz) – a Times of India owned online cricket news publication; ESPN Cricinfo an ESPN owned online cricket news site ([S] ESPNCRICINFO.COM); one the largest Indian general sports news sites, Sportskeeda ([P] SPORTSKEEDA.COM); Indian sports streaming service Fancode ([P] FANCODE.COM); and the Disney-owned streaming service who were the official broadcaster for the series, JioHotstar ([C] HOTSTAR.COM).

Runs flowing for all sports sites?

On 12th February, the day of the 3rd ODI, the combined number of unique visitors to the ‘cricket specific’ entities (ESPN Cricinfo and Cricbuzz) was up 89% versus the control dates, which is a large increase in unique visitors compared to a ‘typical’ Wednesday. While you would expect a cricket-specific increase the day of an India vs England game, the average number of unique visitors for the more generalist sports streaming site, Fancode, was also up 64% as compared to the control dates. Both uplifts were even with a separate T20 match in the series being played the day before one of the control dates, meaning audiences on 29th January may have been higher than expected as some Indians were still catching up on the highlights from the day before. Upon initial analysis, it seems as though the overarching interest in Indian cricket is lifting visitation to all sports entities as the audience follows the match’s progress via any means.

However, this pattern doesn’t ring true for some of the other matches played between India and England in the 2025 tour series. On the day of the 1st T20 match between the two nations, 22nd January, the combined number of unique visitors to “cricket-specific” entities was up 74%. But this time Fancode.com experienced a 17% decline when compared to the baseline audience. On this occasion it seems that a rising tide doesn’t quite lift all boats.

Similarly, on 28th January, when the 3rd T20 match was taking place, Fancode saw another 17% decline in its audience vs the control window, whilst the cricket specialist entities experienced a whopping increase in their combined mobile audience that day vs. the control dates.

Additionally, it’s safe to say that the mobile audience in India prefers the specificity of the cricket sites on matchday as the other generalist sports entity, Sportskeeda, also experienced declines in its mobile audience on each of those same match days, even on the day of the 3rd ODI when Fancode’s audience was up. Perhaps Sportskeeda and Fancode lack the in-depth analysis a specialist site can provide, and is thus an indication on the level of love for cricket that the Indian audience craves this deeper analysis.

When you look for reasons for the increase in Fancode’s mobile audience on the day of the 3rd ODI game, and not any of the others, a possible reason is, believe it or not, cricket! On 12th February there was another international ODI taking place – Sri Lanka hosting Australia in their own 1st ODI, with Fancode streaming the matches of this tour, meaning some fans are so keen on cricket it doesn’t even have to be the Indian team playing to grab their interest.

Global giant fielding an impact

The Disney-owned streaming service in the country, JioHotstar, has owned the rights to cricket broadcasting since 2015. Since Disney’s acquisition in 2019, you would expect on a typical day streaming of Disney+’s ever popular content would be ubiquitous, even on mobile devices. And you would be correct in thinking so. The 1st T20 match between India and England was on a Wednesday, the 22nd of January. The average the daily traffic to Hotstar.com via mobile devices on the 3 prior Wednesdays to the match (1st, 8th, and 15th January 2025) shows a considerable 13.8 million visitors in India. However, on the day of the 1st T20 match, this audience rose to over 27.4 million, an almost 100% increase in the audience on a Wednesday. Meanwhile, the time spent streaming via mobile devices on Hotstar that day was up 129% compared to the minutes spent on Hotstar in the control window.

This huge rise in the Disney audience isn’t even unique to this 1st match of the series. In fact, almost 30.0 million Indians tuned in via mobile on the 28th January to witness England keep the series alive, a 131% increase in the audience on the 3rd T20 control window. The last match of the ODI series saw a similar uplift of 132%. Almost 32.4 million Indians tuned in to the 3rd ODI to witness India complete a clean sweep over England in the 50-over format of the game.

Umpire’s verdict

Indians are bowled over by cricket. They clearly use their mobile devices in their millions to follow the day's play. Even global giants can feel the sizeable change in the mobile ecosystem on a matchday. This conclusion is drawn without even examining any of the Desktop, CTV, or Social Media impact the matches have on the Indian market – something that Comscore is equipped to measure.

And with the IPL having reached its conclusion, it’s safe to say the attention of the Indian mobile audience would have been firmly fixed on watching RCB (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) being crowned champions, and will be eagerly anticipating their next cricket fix.

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