Mumbai Indians record highest viewership among IPL teams

The champions of IPL 2015, Mumbai Indians finished 5th in the 2016 edition of the league. However, the Mumbai based team has topped the charts with most viewership on Television according to TV viewership data from Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India.

MI finished with 14 points in the 9th edition of IPL from their 14 matches. They won seven matches and lost equal number of matches. From those 14 games, Mumbai team received 18.57 million impressions on average per match followed by Virat Kohli led, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) with 18.37 million impressions per match.

Despite winning the IPL title, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captained by the Australian opener David Warner, is one of the three teams at the bottom with least viewership numbers along with Delhi Daredevils (DD) and Kings XI Punjab (KXIP). SRH beat RCB in the final of the IPL 2016 by eight runs at Bangalore, and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Gujarat Lions (GL) are the other two teams who had qualified for the playoffs.

Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders is third on the list with a viewership of 16.57 million impressions per match and the new franchise Gujarat Lions find themselves at number four with 16.55 million impressions per match.

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Business head at ESP Properties, Vinit Karnik, a sports and entertainment consultancy of media management giant Group M, said that while the new franchise Gujarat Lions didn’t have the time to built their brand and thus found viewers and fans with their solid performances whereas Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) with 15.68 million impressions per match got good viewership more because of MS Dhoni’s individual fanbase.

“Gujarat Lions has no story but performance. They did not have time to build a brand. It is sheer performance that has brought them visibility,” said Karnik.

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Nandini Dias, chief executive at media agency Lodestar UM said that these new franchises are likely to attract more viewers in the coming years. “They are now likely to get better pricing next year because of their performance in the first year,” she said.