#12. Why Cricket Is The Most Popular Sport In India?

India loves Cricket. Its no surprise that, as a country, we have fallen in love with this sport. Actually, cricket has become more than a sport & has almost turned into a religion. Alas…atleast in this religion, we don’t have to diss other “sports”, or do we?🤔

Anyway, if you ask any random person on the street, “Why is cricket popular in India?”, you'll hear a couple of common answers.

Some will say it was because of the British influence on India. Ever since the colonisation by the British, we have learned & picked up the habits and sports of the British, and cricket was a popular game played by them.

A few others would say that it was the World Cup victories in 1983 & 2011 that brought people together from different walks of life & created a common thing to cheer for, which eventually earned a massive number of followers. (This also created a lot of younger folks wanting to pick up the sport.)

But the most common reason that people give for why cricket became popular in India is that the Indian team did well and started winning in global cricket tournaments.

Unfortunately, that reasoning doesn’t really hold true when you put other sports in the same lens. Ever wondered why sports like Badminton, Tennis, Kabbadi, Wrestling or Hockey didn’t become super popular even though we have done well on the international scene? How did only Cricket manage to convert this viewership into followership?

The real reason cricket is the most popular sport in India is because of the money that is dumped into it.

Well, this is not something you don’t know or can’t deduce, but let me tell you “WHY“ money is dumped into cricket more than any other sport.

Actually, let me get back to this answer after a “Short Commercial Break” 😉

Well, for those of you who got it, High five ✋🏽!

Welcome back from the ad break.

The answer to why more money is put into cricket is the structure of the sport itself. To give you a straight-forward answer — It is the number of breaks the game has & the opportunities that brands and sponsors get to advertise to the viewers.

Think about this: In a game of football or hockey, there is only 1 break between the halves of a football game and just 3 breaks between the 4 quarters of a hockey game.

There are very few opportunities for advertisers to place their brands during the games.

Today, the most popular cricket format is the limited-overs format — primarily the T20 & ODI.

In a T20 match, if you count the breaks between every over & the innings break, you get 39 breaks.

In an IPL match, there’s also a couple of special ‘Strategic Time-out’ in each inning, with each one lasting 2:30 minutes.

Of course, the ODI’s and Test cricket have a lot more breaks compared to the T20’s, but the focused attention and entertainment factor for the audience are a lot more in the T20 format.

Also, the eyeballs and viewership for the ads between the over-breaks are a lot higher than the ads that are shown between the half-time breaks in other sports.

Now, if you look at this from a brand’s perspective, they gain a lot more visibility by spending money on cricket than on any other sport.

Eventually, for a sport to gain popularity, it is not only important to capture the attention of the viewers but also a way to give the deep-pocketed brands what they would put their money behind — ‘The attention of the viewers towards their ads.’

This primary insight, combined with the heart-racing moments of closely contested sports & drama, makes the viewer hooked on to the sport in the quest to know what happens next.

You can now ask me the fundamental question: How did cricket acquire so many viewers that brands are willing to spend their money?

There are 3 growth loops which happened that helped cricket explode in popularity:

1. Indian team participated in international tournaments → Started achieving positive results → This increased viewership → Hence generated more sponsorship → And additional money was spent on training & coaching → Participated in more international tournaments.

Not just this, the Media & the Youth also played a massive role in the sport becoming larger than life:

2. Team did well in tournaments → It increased media coverage → Athletes got popular → Young kids wanted to replicate the success of their idols → Kids picked-up the sport → Rags to Riches stories emerged → These stories worked well for the media → Youth started believing they could do it → Start doing well in tournaments.

There’s a similar kind of loop for brands & media houses that increased the money they put into the sport.

3. Huge number of viewers → Created a lot of media coverage → Media houses started seeing profit in broadcasting a sport → Broadcasting houses see profit from “commercial breaks” → Associations made money → Re-invested the money at the grassroots level → Increased viewership

Well, brands don’t generate viewers, but the money that the brands spend on commercial breaks helps the association grow the sport by improving infrastructure & coaching quality at the grassroots level.

In the past 5 years, a lot of sports have had the spotlight with the launch of leagues like the ISL, Pro Kabbadi, IPTL, PBL, 3×3 Pro BL, etc., and many have tried to replicate what the IPL has done for cricket. But we are still far away from any other sport generating similar $$$ for their sport.

While you could say that we are moving in the right direction, we still have decades to go before other sports become as popular as cricket. And the foundation has to be laid now for these sports to grow a decade later.

Lastly, the only other sport that has a break structure similar to that of cricket is “Tennis”. No wonder it is the 2nd-richest sport in the world!

I hope this blog made you think for a minute about how cricket actually grew in India & how other sports can grow in our country. If you have other thoughts on why cricket became popular, leave them in the comments below!

Until then…