Indian Premier League 2026: With RMG gone, which sectors will dominate IPL ads this year?

For years, real-money gaming (RMG) brands (Dream11, My11Circle, MPL) were practically synonymous with aggressive advertising. They were everywhere: pre-rolls, mid-overs, co-presenting sponsors, and countdown timers that lived rent-free in the minds of every Indian cricket viewer. Their departure, following tightened regulatory scrutiny, has left a sizable vacuum in one of the world's most coveted advertising arenas. The question now is not whether that vacuum will be filled (it will) but by whom, and with what intent.

The answer, according to industry observers, is that IPL 2026 is shaping up to be the battleground for two categories that have been quietly building muscle: artificial intelligence platforms and quick commerce. If the last decade belonged to mobile handset makers and then gaming apps, the next era of IPL advertising may well be written by the algorithms.

The AI moment has arrived

The signals have been visible for a while. During the ICC World Cup on Hotstar, ChatGPT and Google Gemini ran aggressive campaigns that positioned AI as a mainstream consumer proposition, not just a developer tool. That kind of high-frequency, premium-IP advertising signals intent. IPL is the next logical step for them to take.

Rahul Arora, Head of Rusk Ads at Rusk Media, puts it plainly, saying, "The heaviest advertisers this year, in my opinion, will be the tech and AI brands. They are currently spending the most. AI brands like ChatGPT and Gemini are doing the best work, and we have already seen that play out across cricket."

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Sumit Handa, Assistant Vice President of Media Strategy at YAAP, a full-service digital and marketing technology company, concurs. "AI is coming up strongly. What we saw in the World Cup — with ChatGPT and Google Gemini dominating the advertising space on Hotstar — tells you exactly where the money is flowing. These platforms want to capture as much consumer mindshare as possible, and IPL gives them the scale to do it."

The logic is straightforward: AI companies are locked in a battle for consumer adoption, and adoption is driven by familiarity. IPL, with its reach of 500 million-plus viewers across broadcast and digital, is one of the few platforms in India where a brand can achieve that kind of saturation in a compressed window.

Quick commerce steps up

If AI is the new entrant making noise, quick commerce is the incumbent category raising its hand. Amazon has been building momentum around its Amazon Now proposition, while Flipkart's Flipkart Minutes is aggressively staking out the sub-10-minute delivery space. Both are engaged in a land-grab for urban consumer loyalty, and both understand that IPL is where you plant your flag.

Handa draws a historical parallel to underline the moment. "Between 2015 and 2020, mobile companies like Vivo and Samsung dominated IPL advertising. Vivo even took the title sponsorship — it was called Vivo IPL. That cycle has shifted. Samsung and Apple still spend significantly, but they are not dominating. E-commerce and quick commerce are picking up where handset brands left off."

The category logic holds up: quick commerce brands are fighting for trial, and trial requires reach. IPL gives them both the volume and the urgency. A viewer watching a match is exactly the kind of high-engagement, impulse-receptive consumer that a 10-minute delivery promise is designed for.

The legacy advertisers hold the floor

What does not change with the RMG exit is the structural presence of FMCG, beverage and telecom brands: the perennial pillars of Indian sports advertising. These brands provide the floor; the newer categories provide the ceiling.

Which is precisely why Chetna Katyall Sundaram, Consultant and Head of Marketing at ElistaWorld, an emerging electronics and consumer appliances brand, frames the current moment as an opportunity rather than a disruption. "IPL's valuation may have dipped this year, but its cultural power hasn't. With gaming ads out and legacy brands returning, the stage is cleaner — and far more exciting for marketers. Less noise means more impact for brands that show up with smart, digital-first ideas."

Her point touches on something the industry has been circling: the RMG category, whatever its scale, brought a certain sameness to IPL advertising. The same countdown mechanics, the same fantasy-team propositions, the same celebrity faces. Their exit may, paradoxically, raise the creative bar for everyone else.

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A reset, not a retreat

The Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2025 estimated that the sports advertising market in India is valued at over ₹9,000 crore, with IPL accounting for the lion's share of that figure. A shift in category composition redistributes the slices of the pie instead of diminishing it entirely.

Katyall Sundaram's read on the valuation question is measured, as she says, "Valuations fluctuate, but IPL's ability to shape nationwide conversation remains rock solid. In many ways, this reset makes IPL more efficient, more authentic, and more ROI-friendly."

The shift also holds implications for creative ambition. AI brands, by their nature, tend to run more conceptually driven campaigns as they are selling an idea, a capability, a future. Quick commerce brands are selling convenience, immediacy, and a feeling of control. Neither proposition lends itself to the blunt, urgency-led messaging that characterised RMG advertising at its peak. The net effect may be IPL's commercial break looking (and feeling) markedly different in 2026.

Whether that is better or worse depends on who you ask. For the advertiser, it means standing out in a recalibrated field. For the viewer, it may mean advertising that tries a little harder to earn attention. For IPL itself, it means the tournament continues to do what it has always done: reflect the moment's biggest commercial ambitions right back at the country.