Online fantasy sports is instrumental in revolutionising sports, says Rijiju

Hindustan Times , Dec 9, 2020

Union Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said online fantasy sports is revolutionising sports by bringing fans closer to their favourite games.

“I see how fantasy sports is fuelling sports consumption. It is very important. Online fantasy sports is instrumental in revolutionising the manner in which sports enthusiasts engage with their respective favourite sports,” Rijiju said at the 10th Global Sports Summit: FICCI ‘TURF’ 2020.

During a fireside chat, Harsh Jain, CEO & Co-Founder, Dream11 & Dream Sports, discussed how fantasy sports is a digital sports engagement platform that has a direct impact on sports and the Indian economy, both in terms of growth and innovation. When asked about the impact of fantasy sports in the sports industry, he said, “India is a pretty big market with a billion sports fans, and so we cannot be a one-sport nation. The problem is that sports as an industry is built as top-down, meaning, it is all about mass and scale. We want to build it bottoms-up, and so, we want to focus on other sports that have pockets of users, and in India, even pockets can be lakhs of people.

“Fantasy Sports changes the way you consume sports -- you don’t just follow the top team or the team you like; you follow everyone to see the value picks, research, knowledge, chemistry for every player, and sports consumption goes through the roof. It’s based on the actual sports match, and on real-life events and it’s not available 24x7.”

Talking about the potential of fantasy sports in India, Sangita Reddy, President, FICCI, and Joint MD, Apollo Hospitals Group, said, “Online Fantasy Sports industry is actively working to develop and strengthen, and provide meaningful impetus to the entire sports ecosystem and is committed to creating impact dual partnerships for the government and other organisations to help realise the true potential of sports. The industry is committing a corpus of INR 20 crores in FY 2020-21 and will be deploying an additional Rs 50 crores in FY 2021-22 to aid and facilitate the development of sports in the sports ecosystem in the country.”

Participating in fantasy sports platforms increases sports consumption as a sports fan follows the matches, teams, players, venue conditions etc. more closely to be able to create a successful fantasy sports team.

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