The Screens That Connect

21 Jul, 2024

29th June, 2024.

I was supposed to reach Indiranagar at 8 pm to watch the final we’d all been waiting for so eagerly. But as always, it took a bit longer to get ready and find a cab, which is so typical of me and this city. I was expecting to reach my destination in about 30 minutes. To my dismay, the match had already started and one ball was already bowled. And here I was — stuck in the traffic I’ve grown so used to.

I scrambled to download Hotstar from the Play Store on my phone and was pleasantly surprised to see the World Cup being broadcasted for free on the platform. Nice that I won’t have to login with my flatmate’s account to watch the match!

I was carrying with myself my earbuds as usual, thinking I’d wear them on the way. But something clicked and I didn’t take them out at all. The match started, and I turned the volume all the way up.

The cab driver, who must’ve spent dozens of hours this weekend alone on busy Bangalore streets, asked me about the score. All along the way I kept him informed about the boundaries, the disappointing wickets and everything else in between.

He told me very vividly of the Barbados pitch and how should the team slow down till the Powerplay ends so that they put up a competitive total on the board. Even though he wasn’t very fluent in Hindi and I couldn’t converse with him in Kannada, we shared same emotions about the game. I was impressed that he knew so much, and I was again reminded of the connection almost every Indian has with this game.

All across the city, people had geared up for the festivities. We didn’t care about the results as much as being with each other and decorating ourselves in shades of blue, saffron, white and green. You had to stand by your team; not doing so would almost mean a disservice to the nation. Even those people who weren’t interested in watching cricket at all (like my mom) was awake to watch the entire match, despite the starkest difference in timezones. Indians across the world were celebrating in unison, despite the difference in region, religion, age, gender or class.

So much has been talked about the legends who’ve made this win possible. In this post, however, I want to talk about the unsung heroes that make these ethereal experiences possible. Today I want to talk about the very screens that you watched your heroes on. I want to talk about the screens that connect.

It was Hotstar’s decision of broadcasting the final for free for phones, which allowed us to watch the match from any place of our liking. It was also an amazing tactic for Hotstar’s business to get a load of Free users on the platform and allow them to use the app on the phone.

Hotstar must’ve realized from JioCinema’s mistake of broadcasting the entire FIFA World Cup for free, that you shouldn’t lend out freebies without thinking about how would you retain the new users after the World Cup ends. Choosing to serve the Free version only on the mobile app also allowed them to do the following:

Market their new shows/movies during the ads. People interested in watching those shows would convert to being paid users.

People keep their phones closer to them and they need to install an app to watch the Live broadcast for free. This allows Hotstar to serve push notifications straight to the devices of consumers who unlock their phones around 80-100 times a day

Reducing cost by limiting “free hoarders” like myself to the Mobile app allowed them to at least save resources by charging other “big screens” TV and PC. Even the mobile web site wasn’t serving the livestream for free, which meant that users were “forced” to install the app and that brings us back to point #2

To ensure that you are served all the 1920x1080 pixels throughout the match is no easy task. Especially if you consider that:

A lot of Premium users were getting the stream at 4K resolution and Dolby Atmos sound

The match commentary was being served across different languages at once

There were some matches running in parallel during the group stages

A staggering 5.3 Crore devices (53 Mn for my buddies overseas) were viewing the match on Hotstar all at once during the day of the final!

How these streaming services work from the background is not as simple as it seems. Engineers work hard to optimize how these streaming platforms are “structured” and introduce changes to balance the cost borne by the company to run the platform, and at the same time, make it scalable enough for everyone to use it without hiccups. This art and science of balancing cost with scalability is called “system design” and is a pretty fascinating topic.

A system that doesn’t scale well ends up being like one of those government websites which are supposed to show the Class XII board results — the only difference being that they’re not able to show them!

Since a lot of people would be flocking to each other’s houses to watch the match, which meant that these folks couldn’t contend with smaller screens. They had to switch over to a bigger screens to watch the match. This meant that the hosts had to pay.

There’s also something that was at play here — I’d call it the ‘party effect’

If you have already spent a lot of time and money hosting a party, you won’t think twice about re-ordering food and drinks, since you’ve already put so much money and effort into things. A few other examples:

• If you’re spending ₹350 on a Starbucks coffee, you’d be more likely to spend ₹60 for that extra cream up on top

• You’re out with your girlfriend watching Inside Out 2. Suddenly, you feel okay ordering PVR’s overpriced popcorn because you’ve spent a lot of money getting the ticket for Director’s Cut already.

Likewise, if you’re already spending the time and effort to call people up, ordering food and drinks and buying fake World Cup kits from Commercial Street, you’d be okay spending ₹100/month for a Hotstar subscription.

So, ‘nudging’ people to come together to watch the match is not only good for the people watching, but also good for Hotstar’s business. After all, these platforms spend dozens of crores of rupees to get exclusive broadcasting rights, and they need to justify that bet by making users spend on them.

TBH, I’d call it good business. After all, it’s making people come closer. If you couldn't afford it, you had a way to watch the match, that too “legally.”

I hope some of these streaming services actually partner up with physical spaces where people come together to watch sporting events. 🤞

And that’s what I love about sports in general. It bonds people despite differences. Cricket could be one of the single biggest contributors to the unity of this nation which witnesses thousands of regional, linguistic and religious divisions otherwise.

When India lifted the trophy, everyone at Nevermind6 (the place I went to) hugged everyone. The bartenders poured drinks from up top directly for people to chug. Nobody cared if you’re rich, pretty, religious or smart. People roamed about in bikes on the slim BLR streets late in the night and held the Indian flag up high. 🇮🇳

I still remember where exactly I was at the time of the 2007 and 2011 World Cups. Likewise, I’ll always remember that fine night when Pandya bowled the last ball of that splendid over.

If you’re having trouble figuring out who was the best performer of the match of them all, I’d urge you to take your phone out of your pockets, and remember those hundreds of brilliant engineers who have helped deliver that action right back at you.

From huddling around radios for AM commentary; to the boxy, remoteless TVs when the Asiads were first broadcasted in colour by DD in 1982; to watching the match at the comfort of your own hostel rooms through pirated streaming services, we’ve come a long way :’)

These are technologies which allowed us all to come together and celebrate something that was happening literally at the opposite end of the globe. I know it sounds quite normal but just think about how cool that is!

I’m thankful to the Indian Cricket Team who healed us all through these moments. But I’ll also be thankful to those screens that connect us and help us get closer together as a nation.

Now, let me get back to the repeat telecasts of watching the team lift the trophy in Barbados and Mumbai for the 18934387th time. After which I’ll open the highlights for the Euro and Copa America finals. And not to forget the Hungarian GP. Olympics are also just around the corner, let’s see how that goes.

This year is a pretty eventful one for sports fans of all kinds. In other words…

“Crazy.”

— all my friends these days 😖

#product