New Delhi: The Indian Premier League is facing a viewership problem. The number of people watching the cricket league on television has dropped by nearly 18.8 per cent compared to last year, according to data from BARC India and TAM Sports. The average number of people watching the IPL has also gone down by 26 per cent.
Former Indian cricketer Madan Lal told ThePrint that the trend of selective viewership has crept into the IPL. But when Vaibhav Sooryavanshi or Rajat Patidar comes out to bat, the viewership spikes. Once they walk off the field, the audience turns the TV off. But this celebrity-driven viewership has existed since the days of Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar. Lal says that today’s situation coincides with fan fatigue, cricket overkill, regulatory impact on fan engagement and on-field imbalance.
“We don’t have sportsmen, we have stars. Forget (Virat) Kohli or (Sachin) Tendulkar, today Sooryavanshi cannot step out without a bodyguard. So, there are very few cricket fans, there are fans of specific cricketers,” Lal added.
This sort of selective viewership is not a new phenomenon in Indian cricket. Instead, modern audiences are simply consuming the sport selectively. Industry experts say that what may have changed is the scale of this behaviour.
“Modern audiences are more comfortable consuming sports selectively. A fan can receive instant notifications, open a stream when Sooryavanshi walks in to bat, watch 20 minutes of action and then move on to something else,” said cricket expert Ashok Namboodiri, who previously worked at Star Sports.
Namboodiri adds that leagues are healthiest when viewers remain invested in the contest rather than in an individual performer.
“The stronger the match narrative, the less dependent the tournament becomes on any one star,” he said.
Additionally, fans are moving away from full four-hour-long broadcasts in favour of short-form content. Consumption of super sixes, reels, and social media highlights has surged. But while the reach remains high, the average watch time has suffered.
Namboodiri explained that the IPL audience of 2026 does not consume cricket the same way it did in 2016. A significant proportion of younger viewers now watch matches on mobile phones, tablets, connected TVs and digital platforms. They also engage with the tournament through highlights, social media clips, fantasy sports, influencer content and short-form video.
“What is probably happening is not a collapse of interest in the IPL but a fragmentation of attention. The challenge for broadcasters is that a fan who once watched four uninterrupted hours on television may now spend the same amount of time engaging with IPL content across five different platforms,” he said.
Also Read: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi reminds Mohammad Yousaf of a young Afridi. Indian fans beg to differ
Too much cricket
Lal also cites “too much cricket” behind the drop in viewership. The former cricketer confessed that he himself doesn’t watch every IPL match.
“I just watch highlights if I think I have missed an interesting encounter,” Lal said.
The margin for recovery in cricket nowadays has vanished. The 2026 cricket season started with a home series against New Zealand, which wrapped up on 31 January, only for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to launch a mere week later on 7 February. When India lifted the trophy after defeating New Zealand in the final on 8 March, the cricket fans had 20 days of break before the IPL kicked off on 28 March.
As the two-month IPL marathon (84 matches) wraps up on 31 May, the break is even shorter. In just six days, India will face Afghanistan in a cross-format series consisting of a solitary Test and three ODIs.
This exhausting schedule is not unique to the men’s game. The women’s national team started the year with an away tour of Australia on 15 February. It was followed by their series against South Africa in mid-April. Currently, the women’s team is playing a T20 series in England.
For the cricket fans, this means jumping directly from a gruelling, multi-month franchise tournament straight into the high-stakes pressure of a World Cup.
Rather than building anticipation, the constant influx of matches has brought heavy viewer fatigue, forcing fans to disconnect from traditional full-length broadcasts in favour of brief digital highlights. It has overexposed the sport, making it exhausting to follow.
Also Read: Is the craze for IPL fading? It doesn’t feel like IPL anymore
Ban on betting
A primary catalyst for the decline in viewership was the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act of 2025.
Applications like Dream 11 & My11Circle served as dominant corporate sponsors and a major engine for fan engagement. Many viewers watched matches specifically to track their fantasy teams. Now, with the exit of fantasy sport apps, both advertising volume and viewers’ skin in the game have diminished.
This regulatory shift triggered a severe contraction on the commercial front. The number of brands advertising on linear television broadcasts plummeted 31 per cent this season, shrinking to roughly 45 brands from more than 65 in 2025. With nearly 44 legacy advertisers abandoning the IPL ecosystem, only 24 new brands stepped in to fill the void.
The exodus of tech and gaming companies radically transformed the advertising landscape. In this vacuum, mouth freshener brands thrived, emerging as the largest advertising segment with a total ad volume of 14.3 per cent, an increase from last year’s 11.4 per cent.
Other e-commerce services climbed to second place at 12.7 per cent, followed by digital wallets (6.3 per cent), paint manufacturers (6.3 per cent), and financial institutions (6 per cent). This marks a drastic departure from 2025, when the top spots of IPL advertising were dominated by online gaming, smartphones, automakers, and consumer biscuits.
Imbalance between batters and bowlers
The moment Sooryavanshi was dismissed for 97 against the SunRisers Hyderabad in the first eliminator on 27 May, 27-year-old Rishabh in New Delhi switched off the television. It was his disappointment toward Sooryavanshi’s missed century. Rishabh knew that the peak power-hitting was over, so he would now only tune back for the closing overs of the second innings.
“The dominance of batters in the 2026 season has reportedly made matches feel one-sided,” said Lal.
He added: “There is nothing for the bowler. Boundaries have become smaller, giving batters the confidence to hit every other ball out of the park. They have introduced the impact player rule, which shouldn’t be there. Just play with 11 players.”
Total scores of 200 have become common, exemplified by extraordinary feats like the Punjab Kings chasing down a staggering 265-run target against the Delhi Capitals with over an over to spare.
This aggressive tilt has eroded the drama of the low-scoring thrillers and stripped bowling units of their ability to mount realistic fight-backs. While these slugfests become viral social media highlights, the lack of unpredictability and competitiveness has decoupled fans from their screens, directly contributing to a notable slump in traditional viewership.
That said, explosive batting has always been part of the IPL’s DNA. From Brendon McCullum’s 158 in the inaugural season to explosive batting by Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Kieron Pollard and AB de Villiers over the years, the league has always celebrated fearless hitting.
“Great entertainment comes not from runs alone but from uncertainty. The concern is therefore not the existence of high scores, but the reduction of consequences. If every team can recover instantly from losing wickets and every venue produces similar batting conditions, matches can begin to feel repetitive. The IPL’s greatest seasons were often those where both great batters and great bowlers could influence outcomes,” Namboodiri added.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)