“IPL or no IPL, cricket is going to be the platform’s most important customer-acquisition funnel this year.”

Several Hotstar executives had told The Ken this a few months ago. It seems like Disney Star is holding on to that strategy. The Asia Cup will be streamed for free on Disney Hotstar from today onwards.

Even after losing the IPL’s digital streaming rights, Disney+Hotstar is the leader of the Indian OTT space in terms of subscriber numbers. But OTT is a complex business, and having the largest subscriber base is not enough, at least not in India.

In fact, Disney has been on quite the downturn in India. And the way it’s headed, it seems like it’s making space for Jio to take its crown.

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.