IPL 2026 records incredible viewership in opening weekend with 500M audience across platforms
The first two games of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 has recorded an incredible viewership with more than 500 million audience acorss the platforms, which is better than the opening weekend of the previous IPL season.
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The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 edition has recorded the best viewership ratings in the opening weekend, with two games taking place for four franchises, with a reach of more than 500 million viewers across television and other digital platforms during this ten-team franchise competition.
In both the first two clashes at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru and the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), under the leadership of Rajat Patidar, and the Mumbai Indians (MI), under Hardik Pandya’s captaincy, earned their victories to open their account.
IPL 2026 opening weekend surpasses 500M viewers across platforms
On the back of the 200+ run chases across the first two encounters, the IPL 2026 has recorded a combined total of over 515 million on linear TV and digital, as the reports have claimed. Both games ended in match-winning chases, which led to a highly-engaged audience clocking a combined watch-time of 32.6 billion minutes, which grows at 26% over the last edition’s first two fixtures.
The CTV reach has also grown by 30%, and concurrency went up by 61%, while on television, the first two fixtures of the 2026 season enjoyed the TVR growth of 24% over the previous seasons of the 19-year-old competition.
“TATA IPL 2026 has opened at record scale, with deeper engagement than ever before across all platforms. This reinforces both the unmatched scale of live cricket in India and JioStar's position as the definitive home of cricket. We are seeing strong growth in reach and engagement, along with clear value and outcomes for all our partners.” The CEO of JioStar, Ishan Chatterjee, revealed.
A key highlight of this season has been the incredible Hindi feed, including the legends and champions such as Ravichandran Ashwin, Suresh Raina, Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan, Aakash Chopra, and others.
RCB and MI start IPL 2026 campaign with respective wins
Bengaluru was thrown the chase of 202 runs as they completed it by six wickets with 26 balls to spare. Virat Kohli remained unbeaten on 69 runs in 38 balls with the help of five boundaries and as many sixes. Devdutt Padikkal provided them the aggression with 61 runs in 26 balls, scoring on seven boundaries and four sixes at a strike rate of 234.62.
Meanwhile, Mumbai earned the victory in their 221-run chase against the Kolkata Knight Riders, thanks to the 148-run opening stand between Ryan Rickelton and Rohit Sharma. The South African batter dashed 81 runs in 43 deliveries while the former Indian captain nailed 78 runs in 38 balls.
More crazy games will arrive in the upcoming weekend, and such exciting encounters are expected to break more viewership records in IPL 2026.
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