How Dream11’s Online Fantasy Sports Platform Weathered the Suspension of the IPL
How Dream11’s Online Fantasy Sports Platform Weathered the Suspension of the IPL. Dream11 is an online fantasy sports platform where users can participate in solo and team contests for a number of pre-selected sport leagues, including football, kabaddi, tennis, golf and badminton. The virtual currency being used with this app are game “tokens” and they allow players to place bets on the outcome of a sporting event.
This recent app was launched in 2013 by Reprezent Productions Pvt Ltd and it already has paid apps that are restricted to particular countries, like India. This app has had some buzz generated in the news recently due to its involvement in illegal gambling operations.
However, the Supreme Court of India ruled that fantasy betting is not gambling but instead understands it to be a ‘Game Of Skill’. With over 110 million users in the country, India is one of the top countries for usage of Dream11 and its popularity has contributed to positive stories in mainstream media, social media hence contributing to better brand traction and success.
With a plethora of fantasy sports platforms on the market, Dream11 has differentiated by tailoring its service to appeal to the Indian marketplace.
This growth is attributed to the rapid rise in Internet connectivity (thanks to widespread Internet penetration) and steady smartphone adoption, which has resulted in a growing user base of both young players as well as more seasoned veterans.
The Internet has made the world much smaller and more accessible. An industry where anyone can play fantasy sports regardless of their financial resources, geographical limitations, and job/education status – it even attracts famous sports personalities to play with little known fans in some cases.
The online Fantasy Sports industry is a multi-million dollar market that brings together millions of participants worldwide.
India’s online fantasy players are becoming aware and interested in the advantages of participating in leagues for increasingly popular sports and games such as cricket, football and basketball.
1) Tell us about your career before Dream11
I completed my B.Tech in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at DJ Sanghavi College of Engineering, Mumbai in 2007, co-founded Dream11 ?in 2008, and we came together to launch our sports betting business for Indian consumers four years later.
2) What inspired you to build Dream11?
Dream11 started out as Harsh and I’s passion for cricket. However, the seed for it was sown after we had children who at 10 and 7 respectively, also began to take interest in cricket. When the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament began in 2007, we started looking for fantasy sports platforms hosting IPL games, but there weren’t any out there that met everything we were looking for.
We knew so many people shared our love of cricket and that together we could create something truly special – a fantasy sports platform with an Indian flair. So dream11 was born!
what better way for people to engage with the game of cricket than through a fun fantasy game that could replicate their own team? That’s why we decided to create our platform and thus in 2013 Dream11 was born.
3) How were the first few years of business at Dream11?
Fantasy sports has been played in the United States for over a half-century and is just now gaining popularity in India. When expanding our business to India, we knew that we would have to introduce fantasy sports to people who weren’t familiar with it (and didn’t even know that fantasy sports existed). We quickly learned how delicate fantasy sports can be when introducing something completely new, so we had to make sure all of our new hires and investors understood exactly what fantasy sports is before trusting us their money.
Although high-speed Internet was not yet readily available in India at the time, this presented us with an opportunity: we were one of the first companies to cater to this gap. It meant that consumers were more interested in us because they weren’t already bombarded by advertisements on similar products/services.
4) When did you begin seeing considerable progress in the business, and why?
With the advent of the internet, along with its accessibility and vast amounts of information available at our fingertips as well as smart phones, and coupled with an interest for sports betting and a knack for business, Dream11 apk download saw dramatic growth by 2015.
We reached our first three lakh users in January 2014 and since then have received investment from Kalaari Capital and Think Investments. Since them each year we have consistently gained more traction, reaching new milestones such as working with the NBA to reach basketball fans across India during a live broadcast.
We also launched fantasy sports for other popular games such as football and kabaddi in order to appeal to more users on our platform.
In 2017, we brought on cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who is also known as “Captain Cool”, as our brand ambassador and the Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled that fantasy sports are a game of skill. Currently, we have partnerships with 11 other sports and will be title sponsors of the 2020 IPL season.
5) How did you come up with the name ‘Dream11′?
In sports, 11-member squads are known as Dream11s. Dream11 is an Indian site that allows its users to create their dream team for their favourite sports like cricket, hockey and football.
Must Read: IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay On Advertisement
