India’s renowned fantasy sports digital platform Dream11 has become the official partner of BCCI for the next four IPL seasons. The partnership will begin with the upcoming edition of Indian Premier League, starting on March 23.

As per a press release, Dream11 will provide a platform for millions of fans to create their own fantasy cricket teams during the cash-rich event. The company will also be launching various multi-media advertising campaigns.

Commenting on the partnership, the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) running BCCI said, “The online viewership of IPL is growing each year and it’s essential for us to engage with the fans on digital platforms as well. Partnering with the biggest fantasy sports platform in India, Dream11 will help us in further increasing the popularity of the IPL amongst cricket fans."

The CEO and Co-Founder of Dream11, Harsh Jain, also expressed his delight over the deal with BCCI.

“We are very excited to partner with the BCCI and provide an engaging cricketing experience for the IPL, which is the pinnacle of sports leagues in India. Dream11 is deeply integrating with the IPL, which is set to grow from its 1.4 billion TV impressions and 200 million online viewers in 2018, to achieve our goal of growing from 51 million users to 100 million users in 2019. It’s great to see how our dream of making fantasy sports intrinsic to sports fan engagement has come true,” Jain said.

It is worth mentioning here that India’s legendary wicketkeeper batsman MS Dhoni is the brand ambassador of Dream11. Moreover, the fantasy sports industry has grown exponentially in India over the last few years. As per the 2018 IFSG-AC Nielsen report, India has approximately 800 million sports fans, of which 300 million sports fans consume cricket online.

(With inputs from iplt20.com)