IPL 2018 Overshadows 21st Commonwealth Games Despite India’s Medal Rush

Anvesh Reddy

It will be curtains down for the 21st Commonwealth Games with several final matches, across sports scheduled underway today. Currently, India stands third in the medal tally, behind Australia and England, with 26 Gold, 20 Silver and  20 Bronze medals.

Although India's medals tally has seen a giant leap from 64 medals (15 Gold, 30 Silver, 19 Bronze Medals) in 2014, the Games failed to attract good viewership, partially a consequence of the ongoing IPL 2018.

Sony Sports Network, which telecast the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018 (CWG), fared poorly in the broadcast statistics released by Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC). The official IPL 2018 broadcaster in India, Star Sports, outshined the CWG broadcaster in the Sports genre, with a total of 2,37,905 weekly impressions, even before the annual cricket event began—between March 31 and April 6 2018.

Also Read: 21st CWG Roundup: Indian Athletes Swell India’s Pride

On the other side, the Commonwealth Games recorded a meagre 73422 impressions in the week. The multi-sport event, which is organized once in every four years, began on 04 April, 2018 and ends today (15 April, 2018).

The Indian Premier League continues to be India's biggest annual sporting event, with unparalelled following, both in and outside the country. It can also be inferred that the addition of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals into IPL 2018 has added to the poor numbers of Sony Sports.

Surprisingly, the ever-increasing social media activity on IPL is not observed in case of the Commonwealth Games, which is the biggest multi-sporting event after the Olympics.

Also Read: CWG: Dipika-Joshna win silver in women’s doubles squash

Apart from taking measures to support athletes, by providing more infrastructure and funds, there is an urgent need to promote domestic competitions across all sports, on the lines of the Pro Kabaddi League, Premier Badminton League, Indian Super League and the Hockey India League.

If there is one thing that is common between all these leagues, it is commercialization with private hands, which unite the best sportsmen to make them successful competitions. It would lead to discovering new talent from various regions of the country, while attracting mass audiences onto television and social media. The Pro Kabaddi League, which has a huge fan following across India, is a good example.