Beyond the boundary: IPL franchises scale up fandom economy

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is no longer just competing on the field—it is competing for culture. With the league’s commercial value pegged at Rs 76,100 crore (as per D&P Advisory IPL Valuation Report 2025), franchises are reimagining fan engagement as large-scale, immersive entertainment—blurring the lines between sport, lifestyle and media.

This season, franchises are scaling up pre-tournament activations into full-fledged entertainment properties, designed not just to engage fans, but to embed themselves into everyday cultural consumption.

Mumbai Indians, for instance, is expanding its footprint with The MIX, a two-day festival that blends cricket with music, fashion, food and creator-led experiences. Positioned as a city-scale cultural platform rather than a traditional fan event, it signals a deliberate shift towards year-round brand presence. The festival is produced and promoted by MI and BMS Live.

“The MIX is explicitly designed to bring fans "inside the world of MI like never before" — going well beyond match-day engagement. MI Café is another expression of the same philosophy — MI embedding itself into everyday urban life in Mumbai, making the brand accessible year-round, not just during the season,” says an MI official.

In Chennai, Chennai Super Kings is raising the bar with ROAR ’26, anchored by a live performance from AR Rahman. While the franchise has long relied on deep-rooted community connect, the addition of a global music spectacle underscores a shift towards cross-cultural, experience-led engagement.

Similarly, Royal Challengers Bengaluru has steadily built Unbox into a marquee pre-season property. This year, it scales further into a stadium-led spectacle, combining squad unveilings with entertainment programming—reinforcing how engagement itself is becoming the event.

According to Sunil Gupta, CEO, Delhi Capitals, Fan engagement is a fundamental driver of long-term brand equity and business value. The more deeply fans engage, the stronger their emotional connection with the franchise, he says.

What began in 2008 as a franchise-led cricket experiment has since matured into one of the world’s most sophisticated sports-entertainment ecosystems. Today, the IPL stands at a clear inflection point—no longer merely a sporting contest, but a convergence of capital, culture and commerce.

This shift is mirrored in rising franchise valuations. Royal Challengers Bengaluru currently leads with an estimated brand value of $269 million (₹2,486 crore), followed by Mumbai Indians at $242 million (₹2,248 crore) and Chennai Super Kings at $235 million (₹1,960 crore), according to SportsPro and myKhel.

“Franchises today recognise that the IPL, by design, is a two-month window driven by the strength of the on-field product. The real challenge is how you stay relevant through the rest of the year—especially with Gen Z and women audiences, who are not necessarily engaged by sport alone,” said Indranil Das Blah, Founder, AMP Sports & Entertainment and former VP, RIL Sports.

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Monetising fandom

Sports audiences are increasingly being viewed as high-intent cohorts, where engagement translates into action. As a result, stadiums and fan touchpoints are being reimagined as immersive entertainment environments, with franchises competing as much for attention as for trophies.

Sunil Gupta, CEO, Delhi Capitals, said, “Fan engagement today goes far beyond vanity metrics—it is a fundamental driver of long-term brand equity and business value. The more deeply fans engage, the stronger their emotional connection with the franchise.”

He added that initiatives such as DC Fan Sabha and DC Rewards are designed to create “personalised, value-driven experiences” that turn fans into active participants rather than passive viewers.

This deeper engagement is unlocking more integrated brand partnerships and diversified revenue streams across content, commerce and experiences. For advertisers, it reframes the IPL from a media buy into a behavioural ecosystem—one where emotional engagement can increasingly be mapped to measurable outcomes.

The shift is also being driven by evolving fan behaviour. A recent study by Reddit and Sensor Tower shows sports communities on Reddit attract over 1.1 billion monthly active users globally, generating more than 16 billion monthly views and nearly 100 million engagements, with engagement growing 22% year-on-year in 2025.

The implication is clear: fandom is no longer episodic or match-bound. It is continuous, participatory and platform-driven. Fans are not just consuming content—they are creating, amplifying and shaping it in real time. For franchises, this has turned engagement into a two-way ecosystem, with platform-native storytelling at its core. 

From teams to content engines

This transformation is equally visible in how franchises operate digitally. Increasingly, teams are functioning as full-stack media properties, with always-on content strategies across Instagram, YouTube and X.

Content itself has evolved—from static interviews to high-frequency, culturally relevant formats including behind-the-scenes access, meme-led storytelling and creator collaborations. What was once supplementary is now central to fan engagement.

"Sustained fan engagement is the bedrock of long-term brand and business value. For cricket franchises, this means evolving beyond the core sport to remain culturally relevant. The original IPL Fan is now 20 years older, and the franchisees need to tap into new audiences to keep their fan base strong and grow,” says Jigar Rambhia, Head of Fuse India, a part of Omnicom group.

Rambhia adds, “Content, creators, and platforms are the connective tissue of modern fandom. Post pandemic, we’ve seen the music and live events space boom with a majority of younger audiences consuming these types of properties, making these spaces powerful entry points for engagement. So, it is only natural and apt for teams to expand their footprint to this."

Arun Rao, a sports marketing expert, shares: “The evolution of IPL franchises represents a masterclass in modern brand building, where teams like Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, and Royal Challengers Bangalore have transitioned from seasonal sports entities into 365-day media powerhouses. No longer reliant on the IPL window, they function as continuous engagement engines, sustaining relevance through a loop of digital content, on-ground activations, and community initiatives.” 

Each franchise brings a distinct content identity—Mumbai Indians with polished, brand-integrated storytelling; CSK with emotion and legacy; and RCB with high-energy, youth-led formats that drive online conversation.

Rao explains, “Content has become the cornerstone of engagement, with fan relationships shifting from top-down communication to participatory, creator-led ecosystems. Short-form, high-frequency content ensures cultural relevance, while influencers, players, and fan creators act as trusted distribution channels, often delivering stronger engagement than traditional advertising. Franchises are also becoming more strategic in platform usage—leveraging Instagram for emotional storytelling, YouTube for long-form narratives, and X for real-time interaction—thereby programming content ecosystems rather than simply publishing content.”

Long-term brand building

Franchises have now built parallel YouTube ecosystems and are independently attracting brand partnerships both during and beyond the season—effectively turning content into a year-round commercial engine, Rao adds. 

For advertisers, this opens up inventory that is no longer restricted to match windows, but extends into always-on, context-rich environments. Live experiences are increasingly being positioned as integrated marketing platforms—offering brands deeper storytelling opportunities, first-party data capture and measurable engagement beyond traditional media metrics, industry experts told e4m. 

In effect, franchises are moving up the value chain—from being media vehicles to becoming full-stack marketing partners. The result is a more accountable ecosystem, where fan engagement can be directly linked to brand outcomes across awareness, affinity and conversion.

However, Blah notes that the shift is less about immediate monetisation and more about long-term brand building. “Globally, leagues like the NBA have already evolved into broader entertainment ecosystems where sport intersects with culture. We’re beginning to see early signs of that in India as well,” he explains.

The next phase of IPL engagement will be about expanding beyond core cricket audiences—bringing in more diverse cohorts, including those who may not actively follow the sport. What we’re seeing now is the early evolution of franchises into cultural platforms, quips Blah.