India has the audience, now it must build the Esports system: JioBLAST CEO Charlie Cowdrey

MUMBAI: Esports in India has moved well beyond being a niche pastime, with a massive player base, record-breaking tournament audiences and growing interest from brands, publishers and policymakers. Yet scale alone will not establish India as a global esports powerhouse. The next phase depends on building a sustainable ecosystem that nurtures talent, attracts long-term investment and creates clear pathways from grassroots competition to international success. In this guest column, Charlie Cowdrey, chief executive officer of JioBLAST, outlines why India has reached a tipping point for esports and what the industry must do to translate its vast audience into enduring competitive success.  

India does not need another report telling us that it has a large gaming audience.

The country already has an estimated 555 million gamers and a video games market worth more than $1.5 billion. Earlier this month, the Battlegrounds Mobile India Pro Series final attracted approximately 729,000 concurrent viewers and 12,000 fans to an arena in Jaipur.

The demand is no longer hypothetical. The audience has arrived.

The more important question is whether India can convert that audience into a genuine esports system: more professional players, more commercially sustainable competitions, more publisher investment, stronger fan communities and Indian teams capable of succeeding consistently on the world stage.

That is why the present moment matters. India’s esports bottleneck is about to burst into a game-changing new era. 

India should build its own model

For too long, India’s esports potential has been assessed by comparing it with PC-led markets such as South Korea, Europe or North America.

That is the wrong benchmark.

India has the opportunity to become the world’s leading mobile-first esports market. Affordable smartphones and data have allowed competitive gaming to reach people across metros, smaller cities and towns at a scale that PC- and console-led markets cannot easily replicate.

Mobile-first should not mean mobile-only. PC, console, chess, sports simulations and fighting games can all develop meaningful Indian audiences. But India should not apologise for the characteristic that gives it its greatest competitive advantage: mass accessibility.

The aim should not be to build a smaller copy of somebody else’s esports industry. It should be to create an Indian model built around open participation, mobile distribution, regional communities, creators and large-scale live entertainment.

More games must create more pathways

Historically, Indian esports has been heavily dependent on a small number of titles. That has created passionate communities, but it has also made the ecosystem vulnerable to changes in an individual game, publisher strategy or regulation.

A mature market needs greater diversity.

We are now beginning to see Indian players and organisations compete across battle royale, tactical shooters, MOBAs, chess, sports games, fighting games and other genres. The importance of this is not that every title will become equally popular. It is that more players can find a game that matches their skills, and more publishers can see India as a market in which to build long-term competitive programmes.

Competition also needs to lead somewhere.

This year, India Rising: Road to EWC has created a direct India-based qualification route into the Esports World Cup’s chess competition. Separately, Indian national teams are being assembled across multiple titles for the inaugural Esports Nations Cup.

These pathways matter because they connect grassroots participation with the highest levels of international competition. A talented player should be able to enter an open qualifier in India and see a credible route towards representing a professional organisation or the country.

That is how aspiration becomes sustainable.

Brands must treat esports as youth media

For brands, esports is often still placed in a narrow experimental or influencer-marketing budget. That understates what the category has become.

Esports combines several things brands are struggling to find elsewhere: young audiences, long viewing times, active communities, creator influence, live experiences and the ability to integrate products naturally into entertainment. And above all – meaning. Esports – like sports – is a media form that deeply matters to its audience. That can’t be replicated. 

Hundreds of thousands of people watching an Indian final concurrently is not a niche signal. It is evidence of a scaled youth-media property.

The next stage requires brands to move beyond one-off logo placement. The strongest partnerships will be built around multi-year competitions, product integration, community tournaments, fan experiences and measurable digital distribution.

Esports should not simply be purchased as media inventory. Brands can help build the leagues, teams and stories that audiences return to year after year in the search for the next zero to hero storyline.

Regulation can support sustainable growth

Government policy is another reason this moment is different.

India now has legislation that clearly distinguishes esports from online money gaming and recognises it as a legitimate competitive activity.

That distinction is important. Esports is organised competition based on skill, strategy and performance, and clarity helps different stakeholders understand its role within the broader digital economy.

Internationally, clear policy frameworks have helped accelerate growth. In South Korea, for example, early recognition of esports as a formal industry supported the development of professional leagues, training systems and broadcast infrastructure, helping the country become a global leader in competitive gaming.

Similarly, clarity in India can provide confidence for publishers, brands, investors, parents and players, and support the continued development of a structured and responsible esports ecosystem.

The tipping point is not the finish line

There is a danger in declaring victory too early.

A large audience alone will not make India an esports powerhouse. A sustainable and recurring competitive ecosystem across multiple games is what is needed to drive the growth that publishers, brands, players and, above all, fans deserve to see. 

Most importantly, the domestic and international ambitions must reinforce one another.

A strong domestic scene creates careers, rivalries and loyal fan bases. International success gives those fans national stories and heroes. Events such as the Esports World Cup, Esports Nations Cup and Asian Games can become targets towards which India’s grassroots and professional systems are built.

By the end of this decade, India’s progress should not be measured only by the number of people who play games.

It should be measured by how many Indian players can build sustainable careers; how many Indian competitions can fill arenas and attract repeat sponsors; how many global publishers operate meaningful Indian programmes; and how often Indian players and teams are competing for trophies internationally.

The audience is already here. The games, brands, global opportunities and regulatory framework are converging.

India’s esports moment will be defined by what we build with them.

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.