Disney Star onboards 18 sponsors for 2023 Asia Cup

It was a tough year for Disney in the streaming sector in India. The company acquired Indian streaming platform, Hotstar back in 2019 as it paid $71 billion for some 21st Century Fox global assets in 2019. Hotstar had the streaming rights of the Indian Premier League back then. In 2020, Disney decided to start subscription plans for users who would like to watch cricket. Therefore, watching the exciting IPL action was no longer free for Hotstar users.

The India streaming operations, which were Disney’s biggest last year globally by users, posted a whopping loss of $41.5 million on revenue of $390 million for the year to March 2022. They were confident of making about 100 million users within a few years.

However, Mukesh Ambani placed the winning bid of $2.9 billion when BCCI opened the bidding process for media rights ahead of IPL 2023. They went on to show all the action from IPL 2023 for free to its users. Subscribers of Disney soon walked away from their platform as they did not show too much of an interest in the other content on offer there.

Disney has streaming rights of Asia Cup 2023 and they are hoping to make a comeback through this event by showing it for free to the users. According to a well-placed source, showing cricket for free is being viewed as the "only bullet left" for Disney to recover the losses.

“We were bullish on Indian subscribers’ propensity to pay. That’s not worked out. Free cricket is the only bullet left," two Disney sources were quoted as saying by The Telegraph.

The Asia Cup gets underway on Wednesday, August 30 with former two-time champions Pakistan taking on debutant Nepal. India are also placed in this group while Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh constitute group B. The much-anticipated India versus Pakistan clash is on September 2.

Meanwhile, Disney Star, the Indian arm of Walt Disney Co., is set to generate ₹350- ₹400 crore in advertising revenues from the Asia Cup.

The official broadcaster, Dinsey have onboarded a total of 18 sponsors for the upcoming tournament across Star Sports Network and Disney+ Hotstar. The sponsors include renowned brands such as Charged by Thums Up, Nerolac Paint+, Glow & Lovely from HUL, Surf Excel, Jindal Panther, BPCL, My11Circle, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5, Amul, Maruti, Berger, McEnroe, Thums Up, Amazon Pay, MRF, Policy Bazaar, Tira from Reliance Retail and ICICI PRU MF.

"Cricket fever is at an all-time high as sports fans across India wait in anticipation to watch the ‘Men In Blue’ in action at the upcoming Asia Cup 2023. Brands across categories are equally excited and have come forward to collaborate with Star Sports Network and Disney+ Hotstar to further their business objectives and get closer to millions of fans. We are thrilled with the positive response received for the Asia Cup and are looking forward to delivering an unmatched cricketing experience across both TV and Digital," said Ajit Varghese, Head of Network - Ad Sales, Disney Star.