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Five Indian Premier League teams make their debut on TikTok
With the IPL postponed indefinitely, the teams have flocked to one of India's most popular apps (good and bad) to connect with their fans.
Five teams of the Indian Premier League (IPL) have made their debut on TikTok, the short video app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. The teams are Sunrisers Hyderabad, Delhi Capitals, Chennai Super Kings, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals.
According to Sensor Tower, a mobile marketing intelligence firm, TikTok was the second-most downloaded app in the world for April 2020, with more than 111.90 million installs (Google Play and App Store combined). The country leading the love for TikTok, as per Sensor Tower, is India at approximately 20 per cent, followed by the US at 9.3 per cent. For Q1 2020, the app amassed over 315 million downloads across Google Play and App Store.
These are staggering numbers, and driving this growth in India is not the urban pockets, but Tier II, III and IV cities, where the app seems to have caught the fancy of everyone.
So, to choose one of the world's hottest social media platforms to connect with their fans is a smart move on the part of these five IPL teams.
Here's a short glimpse of the kind of videos that the teams have uploaded on TikTok:
Delhi Capitals
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Chennai Super Kings
Rajasthan Royals
Kings XI Punjab
Several cricketers also have their profiles on TikTok, and have created quite the buzz, especially Australia's David Warner and England's Kevin Pietersen (Links below). Trust the Brits and the Aussies to always have some form of competition, intentional or not.
But lately, TikTok hasn't had the best time in India. Netizens called the app out for its lack of content moderation after content promoting violence against women and animal cruelty was found on it. It prompted the National Council of Women (NCW) chief to write to the government to have the app banned. Adding to it was an infamous tiff between TikTokers and YouTubers. All this led to people downvoting the TikTok app, and as a result, its rating fell to 1.3.
TikTok responded by posting a note on all its social media platforms, "TikTok is a platform that celebrates creativity and expression. We aim to create a positive in-app environment that brings people and communities together, and request all our users to respect this intent."