The IPL 2023 opener saw the defending champions Gujarat Titans taking on Chennai Super Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on 31st March 2023.
For the first time in IPL history, the television and digital rights were secured by two different entities, with the TV rights secured by Star India for Rs. 23,575 cr and the digital rights being secured by Viacom18 for Rs. 20,500 cr.
JioCinema, the official digital streaming partner of the tournament, claimed that the platform witnessed six mn unique views with a peak concurrency of over 1.6 cr (16 mn). The OTT platform further revealed that the overall match views on day one touched 50 cr (50 mn).
Incidentally, JioCinema’s claim of 1.6 cr concurrent views for the inaugural match happens to be the highest ever viewership in the history of IPL tournament.
In the past, Disney+ Hotstar reported 12.7 mn concurrent views when RCB took on MI during the 12th edition of the tournament (2019). This record was later broken by the final match (MI Vs CSK) of the same season, where the platform saw 18 mn viewers tuning in to watch the league at the same time.
The highest-ever digital concurrent viewership till date was when 19 mn viewers tuned in to watch the India vs Bangladesh match during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, which took place on 2nd November, 2022.
Media reports revealed that few users faced buffering issues during the opening ceremony of the tournament. Some of the tweets shared by users are as follows.
Not working at all, 300mbps on LAN. not even showing any buffering pic.twitter.com/g4QQA6Y0le
— Vijay Chaitanya (@VijayChaitany18) March 31, 2023
Not working on phone neither on mobile. Pathetic app to host such an important event. Should switch back to TV i guess @TataPlayBinge can you help me pic.twitter.com/M2lzOYUolt
— Gaurav P Rajgor (@GRajgor) March 31, 2023
Same issue .. pathetic experience from jio.. not expected at 200 Mbps speed pic.twitter.com/v2SB2zGh8B
— DARSHAN B C (@Darshu_cool) March 31, 2023
