Gaming
Rajasthan Royal & Real Cricket partner for unique cricket esports experience
Mumbai: JetSynthesys’ Nautilus Mobile, renowned for its globally popular Real Cricket series, is thrilled to announce a pioneering partnership with the Rajasthan Royals, the inaugural champions of India’s premier T20 league. This landmark collaboration marks the introduction of a new, officially licensed mobile cricket simulation game that will feature the dynamic presence of Rajasthan Royals players and iconic team branding.
From 25 August, Real Cricket fans can get the chance to play with the Rajasthan Royals cricketers in an exclusive mobile game. The game will have star players from the team including their mercurial captain Sanju Samson, T20 World Cup-winning captain Jos Buttler, spin magicians Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal, ace pacer Trent Boult, young Indian stars Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel along with their other teammates, making the game as realistic as it will be entertaining to all cricket fans around the world. This partnership will include the official logos of the team, the iconic pink and blue team kits, and the players’ images, which will aim to indulge cricket aficionados playing the game with a realistic look and feel.
“Partnering with the Rajasthan Royals marks a significant milestone in Real Cricket’s journey and our broader ambitions for the Indian esports industry,” said JetSynthesys founder and CEO Rajan Navani. “This collaboration with one of T20’s most iconic teams is a game-changer for our player community, strengthening our vision of making Real Cricket India’s esport export. It’s a testament to our commitment to innovation and our passion for cricket, and we’re excited to see how it will shape the future of mobile gaming.”
JetSynthesys’ Nautilus Mobile founder & CEO Anuj Mankar added, “We are thrilled to introduce Rajasthan Royals into the Real Cricket world. The aim was always to provide the most realistic cricket simulation experience and by associating with one of the premium teams of the leagues, we are setting the benchmark in mobile cricket gaming ahead of all others. This is not just going to add to the charm of the game but will also give the fans a chance to play with some of the most popular players from the Rajasthan Royals team.”
Rajasthan Royals chief business officer Alok Chitre commented on the team’s latest approach into e-gaming, “At the Royals, we believe that our fans are the team’s heartbeat and we are always looking at elevating the experience for our loyal fans across the globe, bringing them closer to their team in every way possible. Real Cricket presents an opportunity for our fans to connect with their favorite team in an exciting, new way, we are thrilled to collaborate with Nautilus Mobile to deliver this engaging experience.”
Since its launch in 2014, the Real Cricket series has been a phenomenon, garnering over 350 million downloads, over one million active daily downloads worldwide, and 6.8 million monthly active users. This allows the gamer to play basic matches, tournaments, and even career modes, which makes the game a complete and interesting package for cricket enthusiasts worldwide.
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.
