Gaming
How Tata Communications is growing India’s e-sports market
NEW DELHI: Heightened internet penetration and increasing base of smartphone users has helped generate a positive hype fore-sports and gaming in India. Amounting to 15 per cent of the global total, Indian gamers are leading the change in how gaming and tournaments are perceived in the country. The process has been further accelerated by the Covid2019 pandemic, which has drawn a significant chunk of Indian players and viewers online.
Technology is playing a key role in this process and Tata Communications has been at the forefront of enabling these technical interventions. Elaborating on how the company is leading the next generation of e-sports and gaming community into the future with its robust systems, global head media and entertainment Dhaval Ponda addressed the audience on the day one of the first Games, E-sports & More Summit (GEMS), organised by Indiantelevision.com and AnimationXpress.com.
He said, “We have the experience of working within the industry in the US, South Korea, and Europe. And we have worked with not only publishers but also technology platforms to individual gamers. We are looking at the gaming sector to evaluate the monetisation opportunities to give us a significantly better industry and significantly better experience as a community.”
Tata Communications is now striving to provide technical support to the Indian e-sports and gaming community across three key areas: digital infrastructure, streaming platforms, and production and broadcasting.
“Digital Infrastructure is something that is very close to us. The global submarine cable infrastructure is owned and operated by the Tata group. Currently, one-third of the internet infrastructure, from a consumption standpoint, is supported and managed by Tata Group and this can be the vehicle for every single aspect of viewing interaction; whether it’s streaming, or playing on mobile/iPad/PC and posting the content – the nearest CDN server will be able to do it. Also, these streams are in real-time,” he elaborated on the first aspect.
He added that their servers are running on low latency that gives a niche experience to the viewers without any lag in video quality.
Earlier this year, Tata Communication had also announced the launch of a 100G media backbone in collaboration with Swedish communication equipment maker, Net Insight, to enable broadcasters, sports organizations, OTT companies, and E-sports businesses to offer streams with up to 4K UHD resolution. Ponda promised to take it up to 8K UHD quality.
The conglomerate is already involved in remote production of some of the biggest e-sports and gaming tournaments, from completely virtualising the production to getting it on cloud servers.
“These are the points for people to consider where they can deliver a unique experience. An ultra-low-latency delivery is something that is absolutely vital for e-sports and gaming and this is something that will become a core component of the viewing experience. So by ultra-low latency, we are talking about a second or two-second delay between the event actually taking place and consuming it on a platform or video stream that we put live anywhere in the world,” he said.
Additionally, Tata Communications has set its sights on creating an exceptional pre-game and in-game experience for players. “Our comprehensively managed security service also includes DDoS attack detection and mitigation along with web application firewall and unified threat management. It is very important for the publishers too because one DDoS attack in a big event will mean people going somewhere else,” he said.
Ponda signed off by saying that things are looking pretty exciting when it comes to e-sports in India. “We’re attempting to take it mainstream, which means at par with tier-1 sports, whether it be football or rugby, or cricket.”
Gaming
Dream Sports sees 100 plus exits after gaming ban forces overhaul
Company splits into eight units as real money gaming law hits revenue.
MUMBAI: For a company built on fantasy leagues, reality has suddenly rewritten the rulebook. More than 100 employees have exited Dream Sports, the parent of Dream11, after the company reorganised its operations following India’s ban on real money online gaming. The shake up came after the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 came into force in August 2025, prohibiting games where users deposit money expecting winnings. The regulation struck at the heart of the fantasy gaming industry and dramatically affected Dream Sports’ core business, wiping out about 95 percent of its revenue and all of its profits.
In response, the Mumbai based company shifted into what chief executive officer Harsh Jain described as “startup mode”, splitting its operations into eight independent business units in December.
Around 700 employees were reassigned across these newly formed ventures based on their experience and interests. However, roughly 15 percent opted to leave the company.
A spokesperson for Dream Sports said many of those who exited were experienced professionals accustomed to running scaled businesses rather than early stage ventures.
“Since some of these employees were experienced with running high scale businesses and not startups, around 15 percent chose to leave and join other scaled companies or start ventures of their own,” the spokesperson said.
Despite the departures, the company noted that the attrition rate is only slightly higher than its earlier level of around 10 percent before the ban. Dream Sports now has close to 950 employees and is not currently hiring, choosing instead to focus on stabilising its existing workforce.
The restructuring has transformed Dream Sports from a fantasy gaming company into a broader sports entertainment platform. The eight units now operate independently, each focusing on different segments of the sports and technology ecosystem.
These include Dream11, sports streaming platform Fancode, sports travel service DreamSetGo, mobile game Dream Cricket and artificial intelligence initiative Dream Sports AI, which includes sports analytics platform Dream Play.
Other ventures include fintech product Dream Money, open source initiative Dream Horizon and the philanthropic arm Dream Sports Foundation.
As part of cost saving efforts, Dream Sports also relocated its headquarters from Bandra Kurla Complex to Worli earlier this year. The new office, called Dream Sports Stadium, brings teams from its various brands together under one roof to improve collaboration and operational efficiency.
Jain had earlier said the company removed bonus lock in timelines for employees hired in recent years, allowing those who wished to leave to exit with pro rata payouts.
“We want people who are fully into the startup mode and willing to work for it, and we will share that reward if it comes,” he said.
Founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream Sports was last valued at 8 billion dollars after raising 840 million dollars in 2021 from investors including Falcon Edge Capital, DST Global, D1 Capital Partners, RedBird Capital Partners, Tiger Global Management, TPG and Footpath Ventures.
The new gaming law has forced several companies in the fantasy gaming sector to either shut down or pivot their business models, signalling a significant reset for one of India’s fastest growing digital entertainment industries.
