Can Dream11’s watch-party pivot change how India watches sports?

The bet is that India’s sports fandom can evolve into a creator-driven, engagement-driven ecosystem that generates revenue through ads and micropayments. So will fans choose creator-led streams over traditional streams? Mint is investigating.

The core idea is drawn from Silicon Valley: Twitch, the platform Amazon bought for $970 million in 2014, has built a global ecosystem where gamers broadcast themselves, viewers interact with them in real time, and creators monetize fan interaction.

For context, Dream11 has always had its roots in cricket, but in a very different way. The app revolved around fantasy cricket: Users created virtual teams, collected points based on real match results, and competed for cash prizes. He later added football, kabaddi and other sports but cricket remained his foundation and biggest appeal.

The new center isn’t Dream11’s first foray into the sport; From playing around cricket to watching and interacting with cricket, it is shifting the experience from fantasy competitions to social viewing.

How far does Dream11’s global sports reach extend?

Dream11’s footprint extends far beyond India. It has become the official fantasy partner of the Caribbean Premier League and has naming rights to New Zealand’s Super Smash domestic T20 competition. The platform has also been affiliated with Australia’s Big Bash League and the Women’s Big Bash League, and partnered with the International Cricket Council in 2018.

Its reach is not limited to cricket either. Dream11 works with football and basketball properties, serving as the fantasy partner of the Indian Super League, Pro Kabaddi League and various basketball tournaments. In 2017, America’s National Basketball Association (NBA) launched its official fantasy game in India through Dream11, and the company has also strengthened its ties with the International Hockey Federation.

Dream11’s presence in Indian cricket was not limited to the app economy either. there was signed three years, ₹In July 2023, it became the chief sponsor of Indian men’s and women’s team jerseys by striking a ₹358-crore deal with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Following notification of the real-money gaming ban in October, Dream11 withdrew from the deal, prompting the board to seek a new sponsor.

Could ‘watch parties’ become a viable business?

The gaming industry had a large and proven revenue pool, supported by entry fees and cash contests. Dream11’s new model is very different: free tier, monetization through ads, microtransactions and artist interactions. Chief executive officer Harsh Jain says the opportunity is large enough to justify the pivot: the firm pegs the total addressable market (TAM), a metric used by startups to understand a segment’s growth potential, at $10 billion in revenue, with more than a billion sports fans worldwide for such sports engagements.

However, making money can take time. Madhur Singhal, managing partner of Praxis Global Alliance, a management consultancy, says digital advertising is now a huge $16 billion pool in India, but free-to-play platforms are often at the top of the funnel, with broad reach but slower revenue per user growth.

He added that while Gen Z and Millennial audiences are open to targeted engagement formats, the revenue pool “will take time to accumulate.”

Dream11 plans to start small— ₹3-10 per notification or interaction; a portion of this goes to the influencers and the platform fee is kept by the company. It also offers paid announcements, ad-free versions, promotional slots, and creator-focused forms of engagement.

Singhal said lower price points can scale “fast enough,” especially thanks to the seamless digital payment infrastructure in India.

Will fans actually watch these influencers instead of just watching matches on TV/OTT?

One of the biggest behavioral leaps that Dream11 expects is that sports viewers will split their attention between live broadcast streams and creator-driven interaction streams. Singhal believes they will do so because sports evoke passion, curiosity and unpredictability – qualities that creators can foster.

Dream11 is based on a universal truth in the fandom: People love watching reactions. Whether it’s a YouTuber reacting to a goal, a former cricketer offering live tactical insights, or a gaming personality injecting humour, the second screen has long been a part of sports culture. The company’s platform attempts to institutionalize this behavior by making comments and engagement as important as monitoring.

However, this change is not guaranteed. India’s OTT giants already cater to large sports audiences; Convincing audiences to split attention or shift to a new format will require strong engagement from creators, differentiated experiences, and habit formation. As Singhal points out, downloads only “encourage experimentation” and reuse depends entirely on the quality and continuity of the content.

Is India’s creative pool deep enough to fuel this model?

The biggest structural challenge may not be technology but supply. India’s creator economy has scale, but deep sports-specific creator ecosystems are still emerging. Singhal points out that the creator economy “isn’t deep enough today” but that Dream11 can play the role YouTube once played: building the infrastructure, providing tools, improving access to sports content and creating a pipeline of hosts, commentators and broadcasters.

Can Dream11 defend against the competition?

Competition for attention and advertising is intensifying.

Reliance, for example, has begun to further push the economics of cricket: ending free IPL streaming, rolling out subscription plans and introducing data-driven targeting tools to attract advertisers, signaling a push to monetize cricket viewership rather than giving away free access.

As broadcast giants and telco media platforms develop their own monetization tactics around live sports, Dream11 is entering a space where deep pockets, content rights and audience ownership can quickly tip the balance. So the challenge is not only to create a differentiated experience, but to protect it from incumbents who currently control distribution and the flow of ad spend.

Watch party formats can also be copied: OTT platforms, YouTube and even streamers can accelerate similar creator-led experiences. Singhal argues that it is much easier to copy the product than to copy the community.

Meanwhile, the broader Dream Sports group is diversifying to hedge risk. He started Dream Money for wealth management and plans to enter stock brokerage. Mint there was reported earlier.

Backed by investors such as Tencent, Steadview Capital, Tiger Global, TPG, ChrysCapital, TCV and Alpha Wave Global, Dream11 was last valued at $8 billion. reported ₹6,384 crore revenue and ₹188 crore profits were made for FY23, but these figures fell after the ban.

There was no response to queries sent to Dream11 on Friday by press time.