ISL 2017: ATK vs Kerala garners twice as many viewers as India vs USA U-17 World Cup match

The Hero Indian Super League Season 4 opened spectacularly with 100% stadia attendance in Kochi. The inaugural match between the two-time champions ATK and last year’s runner-up Kerala Blasters FC got 25 million total TV impressions and registered an impressive 59% growth over last season’s opening game.

The opening game of Hero Indian Super League Season 4 recorded 7.4 million average impressions; which is double the India v/s USA opening game at U-17 FIFA World Cup 2017.

This year, the four-month-long season, grown from 12 weeks to now 17 weeks, along with the addition of two new teams – Bengaluru F.C. and Jamshedpur F.C. – has added more thrill to the Indian football season.

The season promises to be bigger and better than ever before, with more audiences expected to tune-in to catch their favourite clubs take on each other in action-packed matches.

Sanjay Gupta, MD, Star India, said, “We are thrilled with the response that The Hero Indian Super League is getting from football fans across India. The growth demonstrated is across urban, rural and digital audiences which indeed proves that Future Hai Football! We are looking forward to having an exhilarating journey on this biggest ever season of the league.”

ISL 2017 began on 17 November and can be watched live on Star Sports network and Hotstar. A total of 95 matches will be played in the 2017-18 season between 10 teams including two additional teams -- Bengaluru FC and Jamshedpur FC.

Each out of 10 teams will play in a home-and-away format in 90 games. The two-legged semi-finals of the ISL league are scheduled to take place in the second week of March 2018.