Social media platform ShareChat bets big on cricket as a sub-category

Local language social pla­t­­form ShareChat is be­t­ting big on cricket as a sub-category, beginn­ing with the IPL and the Int­e­r­national Cricket Coun­cil Twenty20 World Cup season.

This will be aided by audio chatroom sessions with well-known players like Virender Sehwag, Ravichandran Ash­win, Gautam Gambhir, Shik­har Dhawan, Ajit Agarkar and Akash Chopra.

Shashank Shekhar, senior director for cont­ent strategy and operations, ShareChat and Moj, said interest in aud­io chatrooms was built through existing cricket-loving communities on ShareChat. “We saw use­rs creating chatrooms around the games during IPL, and they were discussing matches almost on a live basis. There was commentary on what is going right, what is going wrong, and it’s more like watching that match together. They were also analysing the match afterwards. So, this was something that started happening organically,” he said.

The recent CricChat sessions with Virender Sehwag, Shikhar Dha­wan, and Gautam Gam­bhir have witnessed an engagement of over 600,000 users together.

ShareChat built and helped its creators monetise a live audio product called Chat­rooms, which was launched in April 2020. It claimed to have over 1 billion minutes of streaming on the platform monthly, as of June.

Shekhar said the platform plans to encourage sports as a category, with cricket, in particular, driving conversations. Among categories popular among chatrooms are people celebrating birthdays together at midnight, running talent shows, and celebrities. These are also driving strong interest on the platform.

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