There’s a familiar pattern every time a new entertainment property arrives in India. Marketers call it promising. Audiences call it fun. And somewhere in between, the budget gets labelled “experimental.” Esports has lived in that category for years. Millions watch it. Millions more play it. Yet when brands decide where to spend, cricket still feels like certainty while esports is treated like a calculated risk.
For Charlie Cowdrey, CEO of JioBLAST, that perception has already begun to change. The question is no longer whether brands should enter esports. It’s how quickly they’ll realise they’ve been looking at it the wrong way.
“I think it’s almost there,” he said. “You’re right that it’s considered a niche. But actually, the ingredients for a brand are all there.”
According to Cowdrey, the category has moved well beyond one-off tournaments and sponsorship spikes. “There was a time where esports sponsorship was quite event by event. More and more, esports in India is moving into season-long narratives and season-long ecosystems that allow a brand to activate over a longer period of time instead of just spikes.” That consistency, he believes, is what traditional marketers have been waiting for.
That shift has mattered commercially too. Longer leagues and year-round ecosystems have given brands something they have always wanted continuity. Instead of treating esports as a one-off activation, marketers have increasingly begun treating it as a sustained brand-building platform.
Why the biggest opportunity still feels like an experiment
Ask any marketer about esports and one word often comes up: experimental. Cowdrey doesn’t disagree. In fact, he has welcomed it. “The good thing is more and more brands are experimenting. By definition, you need to experiment before you make a deep investment.”
He’s watched the same curve unfold elsewhere. “When I first started working in esports five or six years ago, globally it was probably at a similar point to where India is now. We spent a lot of time educating brands and making sure they had a good experience.”
That investment in education has changed the sponsorship landscape overseas. “Now a lot of our global partners are non-endemic brands. Progressive Insurance is one of our biggest global partners. BASF, which is a chemicals company, has partnered with the Esports World Cup. Five years ago, they weren’t looking at esports.”
His confidence comes from a simple belief. “We want brands to experiment because we’re very confident that once they experience it, they’ll really understand the long-term value.”
Part of that value, he argues, lies in raising the standard of the experience itself. “If you walk into a venue or turn on a broadcast, you should have the same feeling as watching the FIFA World Cup, the Premier League or the IPL. We want to build best-in-class esports so that fans, players, brands, every stakeholder, gets the best experience.”
For JioBLAST, the ambition hasn’t been to create another tournament. It has been to build an ecosystem. That thinking has shaped India Rising: Road to Esports World Cup, a pathway that has connected Indian players to global competition while remaining rooted in games and communities that matter locally.
“What we don’t want to do is bring things that have worked overseas to India in an unrefined way because we know that won’t work. We want to build ecosystems that work for India while bringing the best of our global learnings.”
The approach matters in a country where audiences change every few kilometres. “The cookie-cutter approach cannot work here.”
Esports isn’t chasing cricket. It’s creating a different playing field.
The comparison with cricket has become almost unavoidable whenever esports enters the conversation. Cowdrey, however, has questioned whether it’s even the right benchmark. “I don’t think there’s anything in the world quite like cricket is in India.” Coming from the UK, where football dominates sporting culture, even he has found India’s relationship with cricket extraordinary.
Rather than replacing cricket, he has seen esports creating a different kind of opportunity altogether. “What is really exciting about esports is that it isn’t just one game.”
At this year’s Esports World Cup, there are 24 different titles, each bringing its own audience. “A year or two ago, India was a one or two-game market. Now it’s a five, six, seven-game market.”
For marketers, that has meant something traditional sports rarely offer. “Some games skew older, some younger. Some are particularly popular in certain regions. That gives brands opportunities to target very specific audiences.”
The bigger opportunity, however, hasn’t been viewership. It’s participation. “With cricket, there are only so many qualification matches you can have because you need 11 people against 11 people on a field.” Esports work differently. “Opening rounds can be played online. Anyone with a phone and an internet connection can participate.”
That scale, especially in a mobile-first country like India, has excited him even more than broadcast numbers.
“The participation at the end of what we’re doing creates a huge depth of engagement. That’s actually an area where esports really can take over cricket.”
For brands, Cowdrey believes the conversation also needs to move beyond impressions.
“The long-term value of the audience is huge.” Most esports fans fall between 16 and 35 years old, a generation entering its biggest spending years. “That early association is incredibly valuable.” Then comes what he has called esports’ biggest commercial advantage. “The white space.”
He contrasted an esports property with traditional sporting sponsorships. That commercial opportunity has also started reflecting in the size of brand investments.
Cowdrey said sponsorships today span a wide spectrum, from deals worth tens of lakhs for emerging titles and category partnerships to multiple crores for premium properties, title sponsorships and large-scale events.
“There’s a huge range,” he said. “Some deals will be in tens of lakhs, but then into multiple, multiple crores. There is a huge range from title partners down to category partners. We also operate at very different scales of events.”
The investment, he explained, depends on the maturity of the game and the property. Newer esports titles naturally command smaller partnerships, while marquee tournaments with stadium finals attract significantly larger budgets.
“People are paying proper competitive prices,” he said. “There is serious value on offer. Brands are reaping huge rewards.”
“You look at an IPL jersey or an F1 jersey and there’s a lot going on.” Esports, by comparison, has offered room to build something deeper. “There’s such a huge opportunity to create meaningful partnerships with the audience. There’s creativity, flexibility and white space to build something genuinely integrated.”
That has also raised expectations. “This audience is incredibly discerning. A logo slap doesn’t interest them.” Instead, brands have needed to earn their place. “They need things that are deeply integrated. They need to feel there’s value being created.”
For Cowdrey, that’s less of a challenge than an opportunity. It’s why he has remained confident that brands entering today won’t simply be buying sponsorship inventory. They’ll be helping shape an ecosystem that’s still being built.
Five years from now, success for JioBLAST won’t simply be measured by bigger tournaments or larger audiences. Cowdrey has envisioned something broader: multiple year-round gaming ecosystems, Indian players consistently competing with the world’s best, and esports becoming a permanent fixture in the country’s sporting and entertainment culture. “We’re not here for one or two years,” he said. “We’re here forever.”
If India’s marketers have spent the past few years asking whether esports deserves a place in their media plans, Cowdrey seems convinced the industry will eventually ask a different question instead. Why did it take so long?
