MAM
ESPL ropes in Tiger Shroff as brand ambassador for its Esports league
New Delhi: The Esports Players League (ESPL) has roped in Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff as the brand ambassador for its first-ever franchise-based Esports league – ESports Premier League. The inaugural edition of the league began on 16 June.
The league is powered by Infinix Mobile as the presenting sponsor. While Esports has seen an exponential rise especially during the lockdown, it’s for the first time that an esports league has partnered with Bollywood to make it mainstream. The collaboration aims to nurture an ecosystem that Esports in India like never before. The league will leverage the actor’s popularity and strong influence on the dynamic millennials and Gen-Z.
Sharing his excitement Tiger Shroff said, “I am really excited to collaborate with ESports Premier League. This opens a tremendous opportunity to recognize the growing talent in Esports in India. As the world’s first franchise-based model in Esports, ESPL will surely help in putting India first on the global map. Esports fans and gamers are shaping the future of entertainment and sports. And I’m glad to represent this force of the future.”
The registrations for the league have already commenced and the preliminary rounds will engage in a highly competitive contest as eight teams will be chosen in the third round who will go on to contest in the grand finale.
ESPL director, Vishwalok Nath said: “One of the major goals for ESPL has been to reach out to every millennial and gamer in the country andour purpose of having Tiger Shroff onboard has been to create a much deeper connect and grow the gaming community. We hope this association will also further our initiative to intensify the mission of taking Esports to the next level in India.”
Hyderabad team has been bought by Chequered Flag Sports—a consortium between Sirish Kumar, Prasad Mangipudi, and Aashwij Ravula—and the team has been named as Hyderabad Hydras. Hyderabad is the first city that will witness the proud owners in the inaugural edition of ESPL. There will be more teams representing cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and states like Punjab, and Rajasthan in the upcoming league, A tie-up with Garena to create an exclusive gaming platform for their most popular battle royale game Free Fire in India.
The matches will be streamed on OTT giant Disney+ Hotstar alongside official YouTube and Facebook channels of India Today and Aaj Tak and its websites. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Season one will be held virtually over two and a half months. It will also feature a prize pool worth Rs. 25 lakhs where the winner takes home a sum of Rs. 12 lakhs while second and third-placed teams will take home Rs. 6 lakhs and Rs. 3 lakhs,
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
