Franchises moving to year‑round content

For years, an IPL franchise could live like a travelling circus. It arrived with the season, sold sponsorships, filled a stadium, pushed out a few social posts, and then went quiet. This week’s reporting suggests that model is ending. Team executives and media buyers told Best Media Info that franchises are now investing in content series, connected-TV formats, owned digital platforms, and on-ground fan experiences so they can matter in February, July, and December, not just during a 60-day tournament window (bestmediainfo.com). The change starts with a simple commercial fact: the IPL is too large, and too expensive, to behave like a seasonal event. Houlihan Lokey’s 2025 valuation study put the league’s business value at $18.5 billion, a sign that teams are no longer being priced like short-lived entertainment properties but like durable consumer brands with years of revenue to capture (hl.com). Exchange4media reported this week that brand extensions already account for roughly 10% to 20% of a franchise’s commercial ecosystem, with teams pushing into merchandise, academies, digital properties, gaming, and live experiences (exchange4media.com). That helps explain why franchises are suddenly talking like media companies. Punjab Kings described a “content-heavy, access-led approach,” built around behind-the-scenes footage from camps in Dharamshala and Abu Dhabi and around moments that feel unavailable anywhere else (bestmediainfo.com). Its own app promises training photos, post-game interviews, live updates, and exclusive access, which is exactly the kind of owned channel a team needs if it wants a direct relationship with fans instead of renting attention from broadcasters and social platforms (punjabkingsipl.in). Mumbai Indians offers the clearest picture of what this looks like on the ground. This season the franchise launched The MIX, a two-day festival in Mumbai built around music, fashion, food, gaming, player appearances, and sponsor zones. The official description calls it a place where “cricket meets music, fashion, food, and fan expression,” which is another way of saying the team is packaging fandom as a live entertainment product that can sell tickets and inventory even when no ball is being bowled (mumbaiindians.com). Trade coverage of the event was explicit about the goal: extend engagement far beyond the cricket field (everythingexperiential.com). The screen in the living room matters too. JioStar said IPL 2026’s opening weekend reached more than 515 million viewers across TV and digital, with connected-TV reach up 30% and peak concurrency up 61%. It also pointed to watch-along formats and differentiated feeds designed to make the big screen feel more interactive and personal (economictimes.indiatimes.com). If fans are learning to watch cricket through layered digital experiences, franchises have a reason to build content and sponsor integrations that fit those habits instead of relying on a logo on a jersey. That is why the jobs around teams are changing. A franchise that wants year-round relevance needs producers who can plan content calendars, editors who can turn practice footage into episodes, partnership managers who can build sponsor-led segments that fans will actually watch, and fan-experience staff who can run festivals, watch parties, and community events. Deloitte’s work on fan-engagement analytics describes the engine under all this: digital ticketing, interactive experiences, and purchase data let teams learn who shows up, what they buy, and which offers bring them back, making sponsorships more targeted and easier to measure (deloitte.com). For a sports-management student, this story is less about marketing slogans than about new entry points. An operations role now includes crowd flow, vendor coordination, and event production for fan festivals like The MIX, not just match-day logistics. A sponsorship role now includes designing branded content that feels native to a team’s voice. An analytics role can begin with fan data rather than player data: segment app users, map ticket demand, study retention after a campaign, and measure whether a sponsor activation changed behavior. The franchise is still a cricket team. It is also becoming a studio, a festival organizer, a data shop, and a retail brand, all at once (bestmediainfo.com).