IPL 2020, The Most Watched Season In History: STAR Officials

Indian Premier League(IPL) 2020 was the most-watched edition in the tournament history, in terms of live TV viewership, which increased by 23 percent over last year, official broadcaster STAR India announced on Friday.

STAR also said that IPL's TV viewership reached 31.57 million average impressions, again from live matches on TV only for the entire tournament. The data was sourced from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, it said.

Five independent language channels -- Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bangla, and Kannada -- contributed in the increased TV viewership by 28 percent over last year in the south.

"It's the biggest IPL the nation has seen and the response from fans and advertisers has been stupendous. The record-breaking opening week gave us the ideal start and laid the foundation for a record-breaking season. We are extremely delighted that this season has been the biggest ever in terms of viewership, engagement, and ad sales. Enhanced story-telling, localization, contextually relevant marketing, and technology innovations formed the pillars of our offering," said Sanjog Gupta, Head (Sports) STAR India, in a statement.

The overall increase of 23 percent and 31.57 million average impressions are calculated from live matches only on TV.

The 53-day IPL was played in a bio-secure bubble, after a mandatory quarantine period for all the people involved - players and match officials, etc -- from September 19 to November 10 in the United Arab Emirates.

It was only the second time that the entire tournament was played outside India. The first occasion was in 2009 when the tournament was staged in South Africa as the IPL dates clashed with the general elections in India. This time the tournament was relocated as India was in lockdown due to the Covid pandemic.

Rohit Sharma's Mumbai Indians emerged winners, beating Delhi Capitals, on November 10 in Dubai.