Our IPL viewership prediction proves spot-on. But there’s still more to come from the tournament

You may remember that in a blog I wrote in July, I predicted a significant increase in Indian viewership for this year’s IPL. That prediction took into consideration a range of factors including historic data, anticipation, an increase in interest in the absence of other sports events, the venue and calendar changes and a resumption surge.

We used a clever piece of math called an intelligent genetic algorithm to perform the forecast but nevertheless it was greeted by skepticism in some quarters. And that was understandable. For a property already as successful as the IPL, an increase in average minute audience of a third was quite a leap.

But three months on, our prediction has been proved right – and some. In fact, average minute audience for the IPL is up slightly more than the 36% we predicted. The league has delivered a 37% increase – a margin of error that we are prepared to deal with.

As the chart above shows, 2020 is proving to be another bumper year for the IPL in India as cricket-starved fans have flocked to the tournament – and there’s even more to come.

Photo Yogendra Singh