Lalit Modi, founder of the Indian Premier League, on 10 May rejected the narrative of declining IPL viewership, arguing that traditional television ratings fail to capture the tournament's expansion across digital platforms. Speaking exclusively, Modi contended that the audience has not abandoned the IPL but migrated to streaming, mobile, and connected television ecosystems as global sports consumption patterns shift.

"The mistake many analysts make is treating IPL like it's still a pure television property. It is not. The IPL has turned into a multi-screen, multi-platform entertainment ecosystem," Modi said. He compared the fixation on TV metrics to "measuring the internet through newspaper circulation."

The measurement gap

Modi identified Average Minute Audience (AMA) on linear television as the sole metric driving headlines about viewership decline. He argued this represents only one component of a vastly larger consumption ecosystem. Connected television concurrency, he noted, had surged 61 percent year-on-year, while opening-weekend watch time grew 26 percent. The IPL's cumulative audience across all platforms during the 2026 season had already exceeded 1.06 billion viewers before the playoffs commenced.

Why advertisers are pivoting

Modi underscored that advertisers now prioritize digital platforms because they offer granular audience intelligence unavailable through traditional television. "Television can tell you a household watched. Digital can tell you who watched, how long, on what device, whether they interacted, and if they made a purchase," he explained. This shift is reflected in 125 new brands joining the IPL's digital advertising ecosystem this season, with connected television ad pricing continuing to climb.

Global context and India's edge

Modi drew parallels with the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Premier League, and Olympic Games, all of which are experiencing similar digital migration. However, he contended that India's mobile-first digital infrastructure has accelerated this transition in the IPL uniquely. "No sporting league in the world has seen this kind of transition," Modi asserted, attributing this partly to India's population scale but emphasizing that availability alone does not guarantee consumption.

Redefining success metrics

Modi proposed that modern sports success should be measured by cumulative reach, total watch time, engagement depth, concurrency, advertiser demand, and cross-platform influence—not single-screen television ratings. By these standards, he projected the IPL's combined watch time for 2026 at 850–900 billion minutes, characterizing this as "extraordinary." He also called for the creation of a standardized digital measurement framework comparable to BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) for television, arguing that such a system is "overdue" for Indian sports broadcasting.

The broader narrative

Modi's comments arrive amid persistent media focus on IPL television rating fluctuations, a narrative he attributes to incomplete data interpretation. He maintained that the IPL's core audience remains intact, having simply redistributed across platforms in alignment with broader entertainment consumption trends. The tournament, he concluded, has evolved into "a digital entertainment ecosystem, a mobile-first phenomenon, and one of the largest real-time engagement platforms in the world."