iWorld
24Seven, RedFM & Krasa partner with Moonrise Music Festival in New Delhi
Mumbai: With Valentine’s week just around the corner, the anticipation is building for Delhi’s hottest musical event. Moonrise Festival, scheduled for 10 and 11 February at the JLN Stadium, is all set to turn up the heat with an electrifying artist lineup and cult performances.
The festival’s management team has recently revealed some exciting brand partnerships, featuring renowned names such as Krasa, 24Seven and Red FM. This significant announcement has once again thrust the festival into the spotlight. The two-day spectacle, managed and promoted by Icebolt Marketing Solutions, guarantees an unforgettable musical journey with performances by legendary artists like Adnan Sami and the acclaimed Bollywood sensation Akhil Sachdeva.
Talking about the development organiser Moonrise Festival India Pvt Ltd founder Vineet said, “We are delighted to have Krasa as the title sponsor on board and youth-centric brands like 24Seven and Red FM as partners. In the coming week, we are expecting a few more names to join the list. The festival has garnered an overwhelming response and we look forward to a grand and successful show on both days of the festival.”
The two-day-long music festival, happening in the heart of the city at one of the most iconic venues in New Delhi, JLN stadium, offers an unmatchable experience of music, youth culture and culinary delight to the visitors. The main highlight of the festival is the stellar performance by the music maestro, Adnan Sami, and Bollywood hits by Nasha Boy Akhil Sachdeva, who shot to fame with his Love Anthem ‘Tera Bann Jaunga’ from the movie Kabir Singh. The musical tableau includes performances by many leading artists including cult rappers like Sid-K, DG Immortals, Krsna, and Seedhe Maut, Indie Band Twin Strings and DJs like DJ Yogi, DJ Kashish and DJ Cheshta.
The inaugural day will be dedicated to the timeless melodies of Bollywood’s Romantic theme, and the following day to the compelling rhythms of Cult Hip Hop. Beyond music, the festival heightens the attendees’ experience with a wide range of local and international food delicacies along with flea markets that allow you to both shop and have fun.
The activities during the festival include tattoo making, hair braiding, tarot card reading, and face painting. The festival will be full of surprises, including fun activities, token rewards, artist meet-and-greets, and dedicated special guest zones, ensuring an unforgettable experience for all.
The passes and tickets for the event are available on leading platform Paytm Insider and more details can be explored on its Instagram handle, @moonrisefestivalind.
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
