Disney to Stream Free Cricket Matches on Mobile Devices in India to Help it Stem Subscriber Losses
Disney’s decision to allow Indian Premier League cricket rights to slip through its fingers is looking like more and more of a mistake. A report from Deadline indicates the company is preparing to offer free cricket matches from the Asia Cup starting Aug. 30, as well as the World Cup in October and November to Indian users if they stream on smartphones or tablets.
The matches will be available on Disney+ Hotstar, which is the company’s Indian streaming brand. The company held the rights to stream the Indian Premier League, the top level of cricket competition in the country, but in June of last year those rights went to JioCinema, which will stream matches free.
That decision has led to three straight quarters of subscriber loss for Disney+ Hotstar, each more substantial than the last. In its most recent quarter, Disney lost 11.7 million streaming customers, most of which were attributable to the departure of IPL cricket. While the average revenue per user (ARPU) for each Hotstar subscriber was considerably lower than nearly every other market in the country, the continually declining subscriber totals have helped to paint a desperate financial picture for Disney.
“We were bullish on Indian subscribers’ propensity to pay. That’s not worked out,” a source within Disney explained to Reuters, as reported by Deadline. “Free cricket is the only bullet left.”
The news comes as Disney is trying to figure out how to retain its sports audience in the United States as well as internationally. Not so long ago, ESPN was the most in-demand cable channel of them all. Nowadays, the ESPN subscriber base has dipped below that of FS1, and the company is in the early stages of creating a streaming version of the ESPN family of channels that doesn’t require users to sign up for a pay-TV subscription to watch.
Disney’s hope is that by offering free streaming content like World Cup cricket matches, it can drive more customers to paid streaming subscriptions. Only time will tell if that strategy is successful, but for now, it appears the company is admitting it erred by letting IPL streaming rights get away in India.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”