Television audiences for India’s top football league, the Indian Super League, increased strongly in the 2019-20 season according to the Broadcast Audience Research Council.
BARC, India’s official audience research organisation, said there was a 51-per-cent increase in viewership among the affluent, city-based M15+ AB Urban demographic. The league’s ‘cumulative reach’ across the season was reported to be 168m, and it had 261m ‘impressions’.
The season-opening game between Kerala Blasters and ATK on October 20, 2019, had double the audience of the same game in 2018.
The 2019-20 ISL was broadcast on 11 television channels, and in seven languages, by rights-holder Star India, the pay-television company. Matches were also streamed on Star’s Hotstar OTT platform, and by the JioTV OTT platform.
In other ISL news, Mumbai City FC, the team co-owned by the international football investment company City Football Group, is set to appoint a new chief executive, after the previous office-holder Indranil Das Blah left the club.
Blah, who is also founding partner of sports and entertainment talent management agency Kwan, said: “It’s been an incredible journey with Mumbai City. The club will always be very special to me. I would like to thank Ranbir [Kapoor] and Mr [Bimal] Parekh for being such wonderful owners, the players and club staff, who have become family now. Most importantly, I would like to thank our fans, who have stood by the club and me, through thick and thin. I wish the club all the very best as it enters a new chapter under the CFG ownership and have absolutely no doubt that the club is in very good hands.”
CFG co-owns the team along with actor Kapoor and accountant Parekh.