India’s mega sporting event, IPL, has reached its 16th edition and has taken place between March 31 to May 28. While watching IPL contests, one thing which can easily be observed is that fantasy sports applications have occupied most ad slots on television and digital platforms. It clearly shows the trend of fantasy games has taken over the world, especially India, over the last few years. Statista’s data shows that India’s gaming population has grown by 510 million as of 2022. A recent study by IMARC Group, “India Fantasy Sports Market: Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2023-2024, has predicted that the Indian fantasy Industry will register a growth rate (CAGR) of 44.6 during 2023-2028.
A Deloitte-FIFS report says India is the world’s largest fantasy sports market, and cricket is the most significant category. The report titled ‘Fantasy Sports: Creating a Virtuous Cycle of Sports Development’ demonstrates that cricket is projected to grow rapidly at 30% CAGR over the upcoming few years and remain the biggest contributor to the overall revenue in the industry.
Dream 11: The Idea & Foundation
Among many home-grown fantasy sports apps, Dream 11 is the most prominent and India’s largest fantasy sports platform, with more than 100 million users. Founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain, who studied engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Bhavit Sheth, a graduate of Mumbai’s DJ Sanghvi College.
Sheth and Jain had long been fans of English fantasy football leagues, making Dream11 a personal project. It was their passion to do something equivalent for the Indian Premier League, which had just started, with the idea that others might do the same. Later, Dream 11 became the first Indian fantasy gaming brand to enter the unicorn club.
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Ensured Maximum Uptime with Could
The creators of Dream11 decided to build its infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2014. Stability and scalability were necessary conditions for a cloud provider, both of which have been consistently achieved on AWS. The Dream11 app has an average uptime of 99.99 %. This level of reliability is critical in the fantasy sports industry to keep customers engaged without interruption, especially during cricket matches. The app reports single-digit millisecond latency for user interactions across Android, iOS, and web platforms, ensuring virtual participants can move fast to score big. Malicious cyber attackers are often drawn to sites with a large digital customer base, so Dream11 takes the utmost care with data security.
Out-of-the-box Marketing Strategy
Dream11 further differentiates its fantasy sports platform from competitors with its rich social offering. Social connections with like-minded sports enthusiasts are an essential part of the fantasy sports user experience, and the Dream11 app offers multiple opportunities for interaction. Users can set up chats, form groups to participate in public and private contests, and see how their scores rank within their social network.
Dream11 launched a massive ad campaign at the end of 2021, which featured several Indian cricketers, such as Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, and Shikhar Dhawan. It extended this campaign for IPL 2022 with 17 ad films featuring various Indian celebrities. Despite its lower profits last fiscal, Dream11 is the only profitable unicorn in this space. Games24X7 slipped into the red in FY22, reporting a loss of INR 230 Cr. Meanwhile, MPL reported a 3 times surge in its loss to $149.3 Mn in FY22.
“Our vision and mission are to create an entrepreneur-led virtuous cycle of investment, innovation and wealth creation for all stakeholders in the sports ecosystem, from fans to athletes, teams, and leagues”
– Harsh Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, Dream Sports
