Fantasy sports platforms are expected to see a healthy traction in India and would primarily be driven by entertainment and engagement. Widely popular in western countries, fantasy sports is a kind of online game played by sports enthusiasts, and its platforms have made inroads in the Indian market as well. The overall fantasy sports market is expected to grow to 100 million users by 2020. Experts say that as Indian users increasingly engage on fantasy sports platforms, it would be interesting to see sports in the real world and the online world find a common ground.
Fantasy sport gives gamers a chance to become owners of their own virtual teams by selecting real athletes from major sport leagues worldwide while competing with other virtual team owners online. The participants use the athletes’ current performance, analysis, statistical data to compete against others virtually. Each virtual team owner is awarded points based on the athletes’ real time performance during an actual live match. These points are tabulated later for the leader board and winners declared accordingly.
Fantasy sports have, according to market analysts, played a major role in driving deeper engagement between sports fans and real-life sports, and have helped fans to be more involved in the sports they follow.
Interestingly, StarPick, a UK registered company, is aiming at the Indian fantasy sports market and wants to be present in multiple sports such as cricket, football, kabaddi, hockey etc. The company started operating in India in March 2018 before the Indian Premier League (IPL), and now, with the start of the football World Cup, has launched FIFA World Cup 2018 on its platform. The top five football fans on the platform will also have the opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom and witness the 2018-19 English Premier League, live.
“We are aiming to provide our users a deeper engagement providing an experience that is digital, involving skills and analysis and therefore build fan communities,” the company's Founder and CEO Trigam Mukherjee told THE WEEK. “Our StarPick app will also give a chance to the football enthusiasts to stay connected, whether they're in the same city or anywhere else in the world. We have tied up with a technology partner from Sweden to develop their fantasy sports platform as Sweden is the place where a lot of gaming platforms were developed such as Angry Birds, Candy Crush and we feel that Sweden offers technological superiority in the gaming space.”
The company has also signed up with the captain of the Indian football team Sunil Chhetri as its brand ambassador. Chhetri will provide useful insights to the users and help them to move ahead in the game. For IPL also this platform had experts such as Harbhajan Singh and others to guide the users. This fantasy sports platform is also aiming to have more than 60 sports on its platform and plan to spread to five other countries in the next one year. The company has received funding from foreign institutional investors as well.
