Fantasy sports ride on wave of real life tournaments like IPL, Pro Kabaddi

Beyond just fan engagement, these games are also incentive-driven. Monetary rewards sustain interest and keep users going

A string of sporting tournaments such as Indian Premier League (IPL) and Pro Kabaddi are fuelling the hunger for fantasy sports among a new breed of smartphone-savvy users in India. Banking on the excitement for such sports, mobile gaming start-ups are coming out with innovative fantasy sports titles that are gaining popularity by the day.

The segment was defined by Dream 11, now a billion-dollar start-up and India’s only unicorn in the gaming category, back in 2008 when fantasy sports was all but non-existent in the country, but popular in the West. With the help of some external tailwinds and rise of smartphone and Internet usage, a dozen more fantasy games have come to the fore. In the cricket category especially, titles are HalaPlay, Ballebazzi, 11 wickets and My Dream 11 are gaining big users.

Mobile Premier League, a new start-up funded by Sequoia, has entered fantasy cricket (It started with a set of casual mobile games), while UK’s StarPick, a globally popular fantasy sports player, launched just before the last year’s IPL season in India.

Together with on-ground excitement for tournaments like English Premier League to the upcoming ICC World Cup and local competitions like Pro Kabaddi, fantasy sports are the flavour of the smartphone generation, with enthusiasts playing Esports to indulge in their favourite sports even further. Central to its popularity is the unique game play model of fantasy sports. 

It is a skill-based game where fans create their own team made up of real-life players from upcoming matches. These virtual teams garner points based on the actual performance of those players during the real matches. Users whose teams perform well are given points, with those featuring on the top of the list winning actual cash rewards. Apart from cricket and kabaddi, fantasy sports titles are also designed for many others games such as football and basketball. 

“Beyond just fan engagement, these games are also incentive-driven. Monetary rewards sustain people's interest and keep them going,” says Jay Satya, a lawyer and founder of gaming news website, GLaws.

With Paytm wallet and several other payment gateways integrated seamless, staking real money on mobile games has never been easier. It’s brought about a new sense of excitement into mobile gaming. For example in Dream 11, a user can participate in a tournament for Rs 50, and stands a chance to win Rs 10-20 lakh. In its highest paying contest, the Mumbai-based company has given out as much as Rs nine crore in total to the top 30-40 winners.

“The fan following and usage on Dream 11 grow when sports seasons are underway. IPL itself is 60 matches, so there are a lot of tournaments that my friends and I keep participating in,” said Sarthak Agarwal, a sports geek and heavy user of fantasy sports platforms. According to Agarwal, up to two million users sometimes play the mega contest on Dream 11. 

Fantasy sports has battled its share of criticism from certain sections of the society that deemed it sports betting. But after a long legal battle, courts in Punjab and Haryana in 2017 ruled that Dream 11 is not betting and hence perfectly legal. However, several other states such as Telangana, Assam and Odisha maintain a ban on fantasy sports and other eSports that involve real money.

“Dream 11 were the first movers. They brought the concept to India which itself is a big advantage for them. Secondly, they put themselves as a product which is a fan engagement model which helped in their positioning. Besides, in 2017 they got a favourable order from Punjab and Haryana High Courts, which cleared their ‘fantasy’ model. The legal clarity was a big boost which helped them pick up, and helped them land Tencent (as an investor),” said Satya of GLaws.

In a major feat, China’s Tencent, the owner of WeChat, put $100 million in Dream 11, and early this year, the company raised another round from Steadview Capital valuing the 10-year-old business at a valuation of over $1 billion.

According to KPMG, the user base of fantasy sports games in India could touch as high as 100 million by 2020. From a mere two million in 2016, the base has climbed to 50 million this year.

Meanwhile, a host of new game formats has also populated the scene. Apps like Loco and Times Internet’s BrainBaazi live stream quiz shows every evening that offer financial rewards to participants who are able to answer all questions correctly in a 10-minute segment. In BrainBaazi, users playing the quiz concurrently sometimes can be as high as Rs 6-7 lakh. Other casual sports games like ludo, carrom, pool, as well as poker and rummi are also fairly popular among mobile phone users.

In August 2018, Paytm also dived into mobile gaming segment with Gamepind. The payments firm along with Alibaba’s AGTech Holdings invested around $16 million to launch the new venture which it terms as “an innovative mobile platform offering a host of popular and exciting social and casual games with exclusive rewards.” These games are currently available on Gamepind platform and within the Paytm app too.