Gaming
E – Gaming Federation appoints Anuraag Saxena as the new CEO
Mumbai: E-Gaming Federation (EGF), an organization representing top online skill gaming operators in India announced Anuraag Saxena as its new chief executive officer (CEO), effective 1 November 2023. As the new strategic leader, Anuraag will lead the management and policy advocacy initiatives at EGF and work closely with EGF’s member stakeholders to build a safe, responsible, fair, and transparent environment for the online skill gaming industry.
Anuraag is a nominated member of the National Tourism Advisory Council, a Board member at the Centre for Insolvency and Financial Laws, and has advised corporates and NGOs on their outreach, advocacy, and public affairs. A Chartered Accountant (India) and an MBA (USA), he has spent over two decades with organizations like GE Capital, Prudential Assurance, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse, in senior management and advisory roles.
His strategic acumen, experience with internationalization, diverse knowledge of emerging industries, and deep-rooted understanding of government affairs will be significant in navigating EGF through the ever-changing landscape of the online skill gaming sector. Anuraag’s work has been featured in the Washington Post, BBC, The Diplomat, Times of India, Financial Express, Sunday Guardian, The Organiser, and SPAN.
EGF CEO Anuraag Saxena, said, “The Indian online skill gaming industry is both dynamic and challenging, and there could not be a better time to be in this rapidly evolving sector. We are deeply enthused by the Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi’s clarion call for the AVGC sector to emerge as critical to India’s digital future and economic progress. It is a great time to build the online gaming ecosystem while encouraging responsible gaming. I look forward to working with varied stakeholders and continuing to build on the strong momentum of EGF.”
“We are excited about Anuraag joining EGF and leading the Federation into the next chapter of its development. His strategic knowledge and proven track record of delivering transformation programs make him a formidable force for the organization. With his transformational leadership and credibility as a policy thought leader, EGF is poised to scale up its contribution to the Indian online skill gaming industry,” said EGF secretary Malay Shukla.
In his previous roles, Anuraag has co-founded the world’s largest crowdsourced heritage-recovery platform; and brought the ‘World Toilet Summit’ to partner with the Swacch Bharat initiative in India in partnership with WTO, multilateral agencies, and the Govt. of India.
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.
