Comscore data shows social media now drives sports consumption in India, with YouTube reaching 95% of fans across all ages. Instagram dominates youth, while Facebook leads older users. Athlete engagement rose 56% in H1 2025, led by Virat Kohli, as 55% of India’s sports audience now exists exclusively on social platforms.
India’s passion for sports has found a new playing field — and it’s not on TV. According to the latest Comscore data, social media platforms have officially become the primary access point for sports consumption in India, marking a decisive shift in how millions of fans follow their favorite teams, tournaments, and athletes.
The numbers are striking. YouTube reigns supreme as the country’s undisputed sports hub, commanding nearly total audience dominance across age groups. A staggering 95 percent of sports fans aged 15–24 and 25–34 are active on YouTube for sports content, with even the 35-plus bracket showing 94 percent presence. This makes YouTube the go-to destination for India’s sports audience — a video-first ecosystem where highlights, analysis, and short-form content converge.
Close behind is Instagram, the home turf for younger fans. The platform engages 84 percent of 15–24-year-olds and 80 percent of those aged 25–34, proving that social storytelling, athlete reels, and behind-the-scenes content resonate deeply with India’s digital-native generation. Facebook, meanwhile, holds its ground among older users, becoming dominant after age 35 with an 84 percent share — showing that legacy users still form a powerful engagement base.
The platform trajectories diverge sharply beyond that. Snapchat collapses with age, plummeting from 43 percent usage among 15–24-year-olds to just 14 percent in the 35-plus segment. Conversely, X (formerly Twitter) grows with age, inching up from 30 percent to 36 percent, driven by an older demographic more attuned to news, commentary, and live discourse.
Athletes Turned Digital Powerhouses
Beyond platforms, athletes themselves have become content engines — measurable growth drivers reshaping digital engagement. In the first half of 2025, Instagram engagement with Indian athlete profiles jumped by 56 percent, reflecting fans’ appetite for authentic, personal, and interactive storytelling.
Leading the charge is Virat Kohli, India’s most dominant digital athlete, who commands an average of 2.6 million total actions per post. He’s followed by Hardik Pandya with 1.9 million and Rohit Sharma at 1.6 million — together forming the backbone of India’s sports influencer economy. Their massive reach not only drives visibility for cricket but also anchors the country’s sports-commercial ecosystem across brand partnerships and fan communities.
Sports Brands Are the New Engagement Giants
The data also highlights how sports and recreation brands now represent 20 percent of all engagement across India’s social media landscape — one of the largest content categories by share of attention.
At the top of this leaderboard sits Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), whose social handles average an astonishing 540,000 actions per post. The Indian Premier League (IPL) follows with 321,000, and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) rounds out the top three with 163,000. Together, they represent the transformation of sports franchises into digital-first entertainment brands.
A Fundamental Shift: Social as the Primary Touchpoint
Perhaps the most consequential finding from the Comscore report is structural: 55 percent of India’s sports audience is exclusive to social platforms, while 42 percent engage only through non-social environments, and a mere 3 percent overlap between the two. This underscores a seismic reality — social media is no longer just an amplification layer for sports content; it is the primary touchpoint where fans discover, consume, and share the game.
The implications for media companies, advertisers, and rights holders are enormous. In a market as mobile and social as India’s, traditional broadcast or even standalone digital platforms can no longer capture the full sports audience without a robust social strategy.
Mobile and Video Lead the Way
Globally, digital sports attract 668 million unique visitors, accounting for 37 percent reach. In India alone, the sports digital audience stands at 118 million unique visitors, and remarkably, 90 percent are mobile-only. This confirms India’s position as a mobile-first, video-first sports economy, where fan engagement thrives on short clips, interactive reels, and live social streams rather than long-form television viewing.
Beyond Sports: Lifestyle Intersections
Comscore’s data also reveals that Indian sports fans are multi-interest digital consumers.
- 70 percent of them also consume gaming content,
- 67 percent follow technology,
- 58 percent are engaged with travel, and
- 31 percent explore health-related content.
These overlaps illustrate how sports audiences in India exist within a wider ecosystem of lifestyle, entertainment, and tech — an opportunity for brands to build cross-category narratives.
The New Playbook
Taken together, the data paints a clear picture: sports content in India is now social-first, mobile-first, and video-first. The majority of incremental audience growth sits within social ecosystems, where athletes, teams, and brands drive culture through engaging, shareable, and visual content.
For marketers and publishers, this means one thing — growth in sports media no longer comes from broadcasting to fans, but from creating with them. In India’s digital sports revolution, the scroll has replaced the channel, and social is the new stadium.
