With the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the world, a deafening silence haunts the stadiums, fields and other gaming arenas. While the clouds of uncertainty hover around the return of sports, the authorities remain concerned about the return of sports enthusiasts to the venues. A first of its kind survey conducted over a sample population of 10,512 people created by MyTeam11, the second-largest Fantasy Sports brand of India, helped understand the mindset of sports enthusiasts & how is it going to affect the industry as a whole in the future.
The sports industry in India is spread wide & far, cricket being the preference with about 81% votes while football & other sports share a similar level of popularity at 9% each. Here’s how people reacted towards the poll.
Sports Might Resumes Soon, but Venues Can Remain Empty for Longer Period:
83% of the poll takers pitched in to say that sports might get rolling again by the end of the year 2020 while nearly 40% will not feel comfortable attending sports events anytime before the year 2021. The pandemic has affected people greatly & people are unwilling to put their safety at stake.
IPL Still a Possibility?
All the tournaments across the world have come to a standstill. The 2020 season of the world’s major sporting event, Olympics, was also postponed until next year. On the other hand, there’s still no clarity about the organization of the cash-rich tournament, celebrated as a festival of cricket, IPL. The 13th edition of the tournament was set to begin on March 29, but with nationwide lockdown, it has been postponed indefinitely.
Meanwhile, there are two windows available for the organization of the tournament, nearly 40% of the poll takers believe that it might not happen this year. On the other hand, 13% of the people believe that it should be organized in empty stadiums during the June-July window.
Sports & Fantasy Gaming:
Where at one hand 63% of the sports fraternity is eagerly waiting for sports to resume soon, 20% of the people are okay even if it resumes in 3-4 months. This is mainly because sports serves as the biggest entertainer & stress-buster for the majority of people. Moreover, fantasy sports gaming has been witnessing a sky-rocketing populating with nearly 80% of the poo-takers being active fantasy sports players. The sudden lockdown on sports has dramatically affected the fantasy sports market as there are only a few tournaments available.
Future Trends:
The sports fans are eagerly waiting for things to normalize & watch sports taking the field once again. Looking at the current situations & expectations of people, it can be derived that we might soon be able to enjoy games on our televisions, mobile phones or other streaming platforms. However, we’ll have to wait for quite some time to hear those cheers at the venues.
Key Comments from the curators of the survey:
Speaking about the objective behind the survey, MyTeam11, COO and Co-Founder, Sanjit Sihag said, “We are a sports-loving country and fans being one of the most important units it was important to know how they are thinking and reacting to the situation because without them there are no takers for sport.”
He also commented on the takeaways and said, “The survey proved two important points that people want sports to be back real soon but don’t want to quit being prudent and are fine with just enjoying the sport from a safe distance or on their gadgets. Secondly, the Fantasy gaming industry has seen a slump but can also see a sharp revival trend as soon as sports resumes based on the ever-increasing number of fantasy sports lovers.”
