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Walt Disney Co's Indian platform Hotstar announced on Friday all mobile phone users would be able to watch cricket tournaments such as the Asia Cup and ICC Men's Cricket World Cup for free. The decision to lift the paywall came after Hotstar lost the streaming rights for the highly popular Indian Premier League to Reliance Industries' Jio Cinema earlier this year. Jio Cinema, which made the tournament free to watch, clocked a record 1.47 billion digital views in the first weekend of the tournament.
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"The move to lift the paywall for mobile-only viewers of both, the Asia Cup and the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, is aimed at further democratizing the game of cricket and making it accessible to as many mobile users in India as possible for the duration of the season," the company said in a release.
More than 540 million smartphone users across India will have the opportunity to watch the Asia Cup and ICC Men's Cricket World Cup for free according to Walt Disney Co's Indian platform. They have also enabled free streaming for tablets.
India will host the Asia Cup & the World Cup 2023 this year
India will host the Asia Cup 2023 in September. The Asian nation will also host the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup for nearly two months. Asia Cup consists of 13 matches while the World Cup has 48 matches scheduled.
Both events will receive a huge of viewers. Asia Cup already pulling interest amid controversy of the Pakistan cricket team visiting India. Then The once-in-four years' event World Cup is the top product for 50-over cricket matches. Indian Premier League this year set record viewership numbers for both television and digital platforms. However, BCCI had split the media rights for IPL for the first time, where Disney Star picked the TV rights and billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani's JioCinema had the digital rights. JioCinema streamed the IPL matches for free on digital platforms. Disney Star had earlier said that IPL has become the first cricket tournament to register over half a billion viewers of the live broadcast on TV.
To stream the upcoming huge events for free, Disney+ Hotstar will surely register a strong digital viewership in the world's most populous country. In August 2022, Disney Star got the rights to broadcast in India all ICC tournaments till 2027.
"Disney+ Hotstar has remained at the forefront of the rapidly evolving OTT industry in India and the various innovations we have introduced to continue enhancing the viewer experience has allowed us to delight our audiences across the region. Making the Asia Cup and ICC Men's Cricket World Cup available to a wider audience, we believe, will help us grow the overall eco-system," said Sajith Sivanandan, Head of Disney+ Hotstar.