Indian Super League Watched by 429 Million on TV

An aggregate of 429 million viewers (TAM data CS4 extrapolated to the universe using a standard conversion factor) watched the inaugural Hero Indian Super League football tournament live on their TV screens, making it the second most-watched sport in the country after cricket. (ISL glitz props Indian football, national team drops in 2014)

The league cut across demographic boundaries and captured the imagination of a diverse fan base, with women and children accounting for 57 percent of the 429 million viewers. (ISL Champs Kolkata felicitated by West Bengal Government)

The final played between Atletico de Kolkata and Kerala Blasters, on December 20, was watched by 57 million viewers, culminating the over two months long league. (Atletico de Kolkata to set up football academy soon: Sanjiv Goenka)

The final, with an average TVT of 1418 among M 15 ABC, registered as the highest rated match of the tournament, 11 percent higher than the opening match of the tournament. (Tendulkar, Ganguly vow to support Indian football)

Talking about the league's success, Nita Ambani, Chairperson, IMG-Reliance said,"The success of Hero ISL is a realisation of a dream- the dream of a billion plus Indians to experience and embrace the beauty of football. 'The Beautiful Game' has successfully captured the imagination of people of India and we have experienced the joy of watching the birth of a footballing nation."

The popularity of the Hero ISL has also been evident across social media platforms. It has dominated trends online with fans extremely vocal in their enthusiasm. Globally, Hero ISL has created 2.2 million conversations on social media with more than 275,000 unique authors (twice as many unique authors as 2014 FIFA World Cup in India) generating 11 billion potential impressions.

#ISLfinal trended at #2 worldwide on Twitter, and Atletico de Kolkata at #1 in India on Facebook on the day of the final, Saturday, December 20, 2014.