If you’re a firm believer in the might of mobile devices as a preferred platform to consume entertainment in future, then you will be pleasantly surprised that it has already begun to assert its real power.

For the first time in its 10-year history, millions of cricket lovers (8.1 million to be precise) remained glued to their mobile devices and television sets to watch Star India’s presentation of the VIVO IPL Retention event as it unfolded from 7-8 p.m. on 4th January.

Rivalling full-fledged T20 India matches, BARC data confirmed that 4.1 million TV viewers watched the event across the Star Sports Network from 7-8 p.m. on 4th January, while Star reported that 4 million watched the event on Hotstar — the digital and mobile entertainment platform launched in 2015 by Star India.

Now, this data is really something! And, it seems, it’s going to get even better than this.

As Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director, Star India, puts it, “The unprecedented response to the retention event across TV and digital is early proof of what Star’s scale and Hotstar’s technology possibilities can accomplish. By offering the VIVO IPL to cricket fans lovers through both, the Star Sports network and Hotstar, Star India will be with the consumer at every viewing opportunity, unleashing enormous convenience and richness of content for the consumer and the advertiser.”

More digital viewers also meant more buzz on social media platforms. The event dominated conversations across platforms with 35k mentions, making the VIVO IPL retention day comparable to the chatter during a T20 match. It was also trending #1 in India on Twitter in no time at all.

Seeing the unprecedented response to the precursor of the main event, Rahul Johri, Chief Executive Officer at the Board of Control for Cricket in India, couldn’t be any happier. For him it could make a world of difference for the sport itself.

“A quantum increase in the growth and popularity of the VIVO IPL 2018 would immensely scale up deliveries” on “the discovery and nurturing of great cricketing talent and developing the cricketing infrastructure throughout the country,” he says.

Moreover, there are plans afoot to add four more languages — Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali — which will allow cricket lovers in various regional markets to enjoy their favourite passion sport in their first language.

Now, that’s what we call a delivery with perfect line and length!