With India emerging as the Champion in the recently concluded ICC T20 Men’s World Cup, my social media was painted blue (no pun intended) for until two days after the event concluded. It was the same story after the IND-PAK match a few weeks earlier. As they rightly say, when India and Pakistan clash on the Cricket pitch, the world stops to watch. To put the fandom around the sport in context, the ICC ODI Men's World Cup match between IND-PAK last year drew a staggering 173 million viewers on StarSports and Doordarshan, with another 225 million tuning in on Disney+ Hotstar. That’s a staggering 400 million eyeballs, akin to the entirety of the United States watching. This year’s ICC T20 Men’s World Cup has a similar story to tell and drew a whopping 53 million concurrent viewers during the IND-SA finals and a similar number during the IND-PAK game earlier in the tournament.

Cricket for Indians isn't just another game; it is a cultural phenomenon that transcends borders. This sport not only draws a lot of live audience but has also ignited a meteoric rise in social media buzz.

Let’s look at a few numbers to see what this social media buzz entails for Sports IP owners like ICC.

Historical Rivalry: A Social Media Goldmine

While the finals of the ICC T20 Men’s World Cup between the generational and decadal chokers was expectedly going to be of huge interest, the IND-PAK Cricket rivalry, fueled by history, culture, and fierce competition, also emerged as a social media juggernaut. Spectar’s analysis of the Official Social Media channels associated with the ICC T20 Men's World Cup underscores this phenomenon.

We analysed the Instagram channel of ICC in the 24 hours following the start of the IND-PAK match as well as the nail-biting IND-SA finals, and it revealed some eye popping facts - ICC published a total of 60 posts, including both Reels and Static Carousels, post the IND-PAK match, and a staggering 95 posts after the Finals.

Within this short span, the content posted after the IND-PAK match attracted a cumulative 300 million views, 25 million likes and 100K comments, comparable to the live broadcast viewership of 400 million last year. Expectedly, IND-SA drew a cumulative 1.2 billion views, 130 million likes, and 521K comments on ICC’s Instagram posts.

And that’s just on Instagram. ICC has an official partnership with Meta under which it also posts content on Facebook, a platform that’s quite popular amongst the typical mobile-first Cricket fan.

Here’s a detailed analysis of the Instagram activity post IND-PAK match (any User Generated Content is over and above the content posted from Official accounts and is not included in the scope of this analysis)

The content is categorised by multiple axes - gameplay vs non-gameplay content, sponsored vs non-sponsored content, static vs video content.

1. Of the 60 posts during the IND-PAK, only around 9 posts on ICC’s Official channel were Sponsored while the rest fell in the non-sponsored category. It was the same story for the finals between IND-SA of the T20 Men’s World Cup.

Sponsored posts on social media featured the same brands that featured during the live broadcasts. Currently, most Sponsorship deals struck between brands and IP owners include live broadcast and certain deliverables for the official social media channels.

At present, there is no precedent in sports where social media posts are packaged separately for digital native brands to associate with. It's widely acknowledged that the industry, particularly tier-1 Rights Holders and some brands, are cautious about excessive sponsored posts due to their perceived intrusiveness. However, as fans shift to social media and leagues seek new revenue streams this could change over time, fuelled by technology advances that seamlessly integrate brands into content. We'll have to wait and see how this pans out!

2. Non-Sponsored content offers an untapped opportunity for Rights Holders and Brands with the higher levels of engagement that they drive

3. A closer look at the type of content that struck a chord with the fans revealed that Gameplay-related Videos (Reels) performed the best amongst all types of content. They received an engagement rate of 33.21% against a rate of 8.1% for Static posts.

What this reveals is the huge appetite fans have for game-related content and the need for leagues to be at the front and centre of this trend and leverage technology to be able to furnish this content for fans in a timely and preferably, personalised manner.

The rise of short-form content as an important consumption media and an increasingly important revenue driver has been clear with Football leading the way. Premier League for example, has carved out the highlights rights separately for the UK market and has a separate commercial deal for the same. With media rights value plateauing for most sports, this was a natural shift. It is only going to become more pronounced in the years to come.

While social media has been taking a larger chunk of the “eyeballs” pie, revenues are still highly skewed to live broadcast whether it’s media rights, sponsorship/advertising revenues or ticket sales. Rights Holders have a highly engaged audience at their disposal which they can leverage to unlock new revenue opportunities.

What Could This Translate To In Terms Of Revenue?

While brands appear prominently in sponsored social media content, the value they derive can be significantly enhanced with more efficient sponsorship solutions.

The ICC and every major sporting league can unlock a treasure trove of sponsorship opportunities by embracing innovative social media strategies. Here's how:

• Monetization Potential of Social Media: With a CPE (cost per engagement) of 5 cents or a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of $3.6, ICC could have generated an additional $0.2 million in revenue from a single match if each post was a sponsored one. This translates to $12-13 million over an entire tournament of 55 matches.

• Bring in Social Media Native Brands Exclusively: A brand which is more relevant for audiences on social media can choose to get into activations exclusive to social media and not shell out big bucks for the entire sponsorship deal by using the demographic data available on social media. Technology might also help them seamlessly integrate their brand message with the content of the post. For example, social media has a big influence on sportswear trends, even more than traditional media. This trend was evident as Instagram is leading in sportswear brand engagement, with 90% of user interaction leading to sportswear brands increasingly using Instagram to reach their audiences.
• Dynamic and Creative Messaging: Brands have typically only used physical branding which can often be limiting from a creative point of view. With new technology like AI, creative and dynamic messaging through the Tournament is possible without incurring huge costs on physical infrastructure.

There’s a lot that technology can do for Rights Holders and Brands, whether it is to leverage virtual sponsorship technology for new brand partners, enhance the prominence of existing partners, or enable partners to create more compelling and dynamic brand messaging. Furthermore, Rights Holders could leverage data and analytics to understand audience preferences and tailor sponsorship campaigns for maximum impact.

Leagues, athletes, and brands stand to gain much more revenue by using new-age tech solutions powered by artificial intelligence. Stay tuned to learn about emerging AI solutions and how AI is transforming the social media landscape for these sports entities.

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