iWorld
Airtel unveils new prepaid plans bundled with Disney+ Hotstar benefits
Mumbai: Telecom major Bharti Airtel Ltd (Airtel) has unveiled its new prepaid mobile plans that come with high-speed data, unlimited calling, daily SMS benefits as well as one-year free access to streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar.
“With Disney+ Hotstar subscription, users will get access to live coverage of major global sporting events, including the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) and T20 World Cup, exclusive specials series, film releases, and others,” said the telecom operator announcing the plans on Thursday.
Airtel’s first new prepaid recharge plan starts at Rs 499 and offers 28 days validity along with unlimited calls to any network in India. Additionally, it offers 100 SMS per day along with three GB of data per day and one year mobile-only Disney+ Hotstar subscription, Apollo 24/7 Circle three months membership and free courses from Shaw Academy.
Another new prepaid recharge plan of Rs 699 offers two GB per day data along with unlimited calls and 100 SMS per day with a validity period of 56 days. It also provides mobile-only Disney+ Hotstar subscription for a year, Apollo 24/7 Circle three months membership and free courses from Shaw Academy.
The third new recharge plan is worth Rs 2798 which offers two GB per day data along with unlimited calls and 100 SMS per day for a validity period of 365 days. The plan also includes the same benefits as the Rs 699 prepaid plan.
Airtel mentioned that all its postpaid plans of Rs 499 and above also offer one year of free mobile-only Disney+ Hotstar subscription.
The company further said all the Airtel Xstream Fiber plans above Rs 999 contain a year of free Disney+ Hotstar ‘super’ subscription. Currently, Airtel’s Xstream Fiber has broadband plans with up to one Gbps speed, unlimited data, unlimited calling benefits.
Moreover, all Airtel users also have the added benefit of directly purchasing the Disney+Hotstar subscription of their choice directly from Airtel shop with the convenience of either getting it added to their monthly postpaid bill or upfront payment via multiple payment modes, said the telecom company.
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.
