Cricket does not end on the TV screen. It continues on the phone.
Television drives emotion. Mobile captures response.
That shift is redefining how live cricket functions for brands.
For years, cricket has been planned as India’s largest reach event. What is changing is what that scale
now represents. Live cricket is no longer just an attention spike. It is a behavioural trigger.
In our recent study, The Great Indian Cricket Fan on Truecaller, conducted with VTION, we analysed what
audiences actually do on their phones during live matches – particularly within call-led environments
like Truecaller.
The pattern is clear: behaviour accelerates.
76 percent of viewers use their phone while watching cricket. They call, message, check scores, order
food and make payments. These are not distraction behaviours. They are coordination behaviours.
Nearly 1 in 2 cricket viewers is active on Truecaller during live matches. During these windows, we
observed an approximate 21% uplift in active usage compared to pre-cricket baselines. The increase is
driven by call-led coordination and extends across high-value categories including sports and media,
food and drink, ecommerce, gaming and payments.
Food ordering, in particular, rises during match moments, often beginning with a call. Among women on
Truecaller, call-led engagement deepens further, reflecting a stronger role in planning and transaction
decisions during live play.
When the match tightens, conversations spike. Plans are confirmed. Orders are placed. Payments are
completed. Decisions unfold in real time.
Truecaller sits structurally within these moments. Every incoming and outgoing call activates the
platform, placing it at the centre of coordination. With over 310 million users in India, Truecaller operates
where identity, trust and action intersect; especially during high-emotion match situations.
Rethinking Measurement in High-Emotion Moments
Cricket’s immersion is its strength. It is also a challenge for traditional measurement. In a final over,
recall competes with adrenaline. Memory becomes an imperfect proxy for impact.To understand what
truly shifts, we need behavioural observation.
The study analysed passive mobile-behaviour signals from approximately 12,300 cricket viewers who
are Truecaller users, alongside a primary survey of 828 respondents. Behaviour was tracked across the
March-May 2025 cricket window and benchmarked against pre-cricket baselines.
Passive measurement captures what people do, not just what they remember. What we observed was
consistent: live cricket correlates with measurable uplift in communication and transaction-linked
activity.
That is not just engagement. It is intent expressed.
From Attention to Intent
For marketers, this marks a structural shift. Cricket has traditionally been treated as an attention
economy. Increasingly, it operates as an intent economy.
The brands that win will not simply dominate broadcast slots. They will align with trusted mobile
environments where coordination naturally begins and transactions follow.
Television builds emotional equity.
Mobile utility converts that equity into action. These layers are sequential.
A More Integrated Cricket Playbook
As cricket investments continue to expand, three shifts matter:
- Plan cricket as a behavioural ecosystem, not just a media burst.
- Prioritise high-trust mobile environments where decision-making intensifies during live play.
- Evolve measurement beyond recall to include behavioural evidence.
Cricket will always deliver scale. But scale is the entry point.
The real advantage lies in understanding how attention converts into intent and being present where
that intent becomes action.
Because in India today, cricket unfolds across screens. And increasingly, those decisions begin with a
call
