JioStar, the official broadcast and streaming partner for the IPL 2025, broke many milestones and delivered a historic event, attracting an unprecedented one billion viewers across TV and digital platforms. The highly anticipated 18th edition, which saw the energetic ascent of ‘Generation Bold’ alongside the famous ‘Generation Gold,’ had the highest-ever cumulative watch-time of more over 840 billion minutes.
JioHotstar, the league’s digital home, achieved new records with over 23.1 billion views and 384.6 billion minutes of watch time, representing a 29% year-on-year increase in digital viewing. This momentum was fuelled by a 49% increase in Connected TV (CTV) consumption, highlighting the emergence of large-screen digital viewing in India, which coincided with the existing penetration of linear large-screen televisions.
On linear television, the league achieved a new record for live broadcast viewership, with Star Sports generating 456 billion minutes of watch time and the greatest average TVR (rating) across the viewing universe and key demographics on the network.
The IPL 2025 Final received a record 31.7 billion minutes of viewership across JioStar’s platforms (Star Sports and JioHotstar), making it the most-watched match in T20 Cricket history. The final set new T20 Cricket records on both traditional and digital platforms. On TV, backed by Star Sports, it had the biggest ever audience reach for a T20 match, with 169 million people and 15 billion minutes of watch time. The match on JioHotstar changed digital history, becoming the most watched T20 match ever with 892 million video views, 55 million peak concurrency, and 16.74 billion minutes watched.
This season will be remembered as one of the most historic in the league’s history, with Royal Challengers Bengaluru winning the trophy among numerous firsts, including Virat Kohli’s first IPL triumph and 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi becoming the youngest centurion at this level. It will also be remembered for pioneering viewing experiences on JioStar’s platforms, such as MaxView 2.0, a native mobile experience enhanced with intuitive “swipe” navigation for clips, dedicated FAST channels serving key fan tribes, voice-based video search, and VOD content in 12 Indian languages.
Sanjog Gupta, CEO of JioStar Sports and Live Experiences, stated, “The incredible viewership numbers are reinforcement of our belief in the commitment to serve fans and the potential for growth of even a scaled property like the IPL.”
“We took a two-pronged approach this season. We sought to broaden the appeal of the tournament experience by focussing on important viewer cohorts with a light-touch relationship with the IPL, while simultaneously providing a comprehensive, navigable consumer journey to increase engagement with devoted fans. JioStar tailored its products to a wide range of diverse cohorts based on age, consumption profile, and geography, from non-viewers and peripheral viewers co-viewing the IPL to completely engrossed fans.
From the invitation and proposition to the broadcast, we were dedicated to providing hyper-personalized experiences that were inclusive, intuitive, engaging, and immersive. We express our heartfelt gratitude to the fans, whose enthusiasm and love for the game motivates us. We would also want to thank BCCI and our partners, whose support is vital in our efforts to consistently raise the bar on the industry-defining experiences we provide on our platforms’, he added.
The season also started strong, with the first weekend (three matches) generating 49.56 billion minutes of watch-time across platforms, an all-time IPL record.
Despite the league’s mid-season suspension, IPL 2025 received record viewership and engagement, reinforcing the season’s fundamental concept of ‘Yahaan Sab Possible Hai’.
JioStar provided an unprecedented presentation of the world’s largest T20 competition, with over 25 feeds in 12 languages across TV and digital. More than 170 specialists contributed to the coverage, including previous IPL champions, Indian and international cricket superstars, and some of the game’s most revered voices. Live match action was enhanced by a riveting line-up of programming leading up to Season 18, which included interviews with league icons, team owners, commentators, and previous mentors.
The presentation was made more accessible, immersive, and engaging for fans by including alternatives and experiences including 4K with Dolby Atmos audio, VR 360 Live, Live Audio Descriptive, Indian Sign Language, and a Multi-Cam feed, among others. Core fan engagement was boosted by additional interactive features including the popular free-to-play tournament Jeeto Dhan Dhana Dhan.
After another successful IPL season, JioStar will now bring India’s tour of England to fans, as Shubman Gill’s ‘generation bold’ prepares to face Ben Stokes’ ‘ruthless Bazball’, live on JioHotstar beginning June 20.
India
