2025 IPL - Lucknow Super Giants v Royal Challengers Bengaluru

Jitesh Sharma plays a shot during 2025 IPL match at Ekana Cricket Stadium on May 27, 2025 (Surjeet Yadav/Getty Images)

Cricket has helped power an Indian streaming platform to 280 million subscribers

After launching in February, Disney-Reliance-owned JioHotstar’s subscriber numbers have exploded, rivaling that of Netflix.

Claire Yubin Oh

5/28/25 7:00AM

For years, Netflix has led the streaming world order, churning out global, local, and increasingly live sports content to swell its subscriber base to more than 300 million.

But while Netflix has left many of its Western rivals in the dust, India’s JioHotstar is suddenly lurking in second place, with India’s favorite streaming platform racking up more than 280 million subscribers in recent months, per the Financial Times, thanks in part to its broadcasting rights for the world’s most popular cricket league.

Born out of the $8.5 billion megamerger last year between Disney India’s Hotstar platform and JioCinema, a streamer owned by the Indian media giant Reliance, JioHotstar currently owns both the digital and television rights for the Indian Premier League. Before the merger, IPL matches used to be freely accessible on Reliance’s Jio platforms, but since then cricket fans have had no choice but to subscribe to JioHotstar’s services, driving hundreds of millions of fans to commit to the new platform in the span of some four months.

JiHotStar has 280M subscribers — Sherwood News

Testing the boundaries

Home to ~1.4 billion people — many of whom are cricket fanatics — the world’s most populous country was always going to be fertile ground for growing the audience of a new cricket competition. But since its founding in 2007, the quick-fire Twenty20 format has bowled audiences over, quickly making the IPL the most-watched cricket competition.

With such a huge audience, the money has come flooding in. Investment bank Jeffries estimated after the merger last year that JioStar, which owns the JioHotstar platform, will have a 40% share of the total Indian advertising market in TV and streaming.

But that dominance comes with a cost. Despite its huge customer base, subscriptions aren’t as valuable as in other regions, with some packages starting from just $0.60 a month, the FT reported. That’s not a huge sum to pay back the $6.2 billion that broadcasters’ have spent on the high-stake cricket rights, let alone profit from the massive investment. Retaining cricket fans after the IPL season, which ends on June 3, is an even bigger task.

Max Knoblauch10/24/25

Premium seats help push airlines higher following third-quarter results

Shares of American Airlines are climbing toward the carrier’s best trading day since August 12, when ultra-budget rival Spirit issued its initial warning about its ability to survive. American’s shares are up more than 7% on Friday afternoon.

Investors’ optimism comes a day after American posted a better-than-expected full-year earnings forecast. In a call with investors, American said that it’s ramping up its premium cabin offerings.

“Our ability to grow capacity in premium markets will be further supported as we take delivery of new aircraft and reconfigure our existing fleet. These efforts will allow us to grow our premium seats at nearly two times the rate of main cabin seats,” CEO Robert Isom said. American CFO Devin May said that nose-to-tail retrofits of certain wide-body jets will bump the number of premium seats available on those planes by 25%.

Extra legroom has been a boon for major carriers, particularly this quarter. Delta Air Lines said its premium product revenue grew 9% in Q3, compared to a 4% drop in economy seat revenue. Similarly, United Airlines said its premium revenue grew 6%, outpacing economy. Shares of both airlines were up more than 3% on Friday.

Carriers with less exposure to first- and business-class tickets like Southwest Airlines and JetBlue didn’t see the same amount of momentum on the day.