Introduction to FanCode:
- Dream Sports owned (parent company of Dream 11, India’s largest fantasy sports platform with 200 million + users) FanCode, a sports streaming platform from India, offers a diverse range of sports and leagues catering to sports enthusiasts.
- Founded four years ago by CEO and co-founder Yannick Colaco and Prasana Krishnan, FanCode prioritizes access to sports content with a loyal following but limited distribution.
- Dream Sports-owned sports streaming platform FanCode is aiming to double its paid subscriber base in 2024. Yannick Colaco, co-founder of FanCode, revealed that the platform’s user base grew by over five times in the last three years, and they anticipate a growth of over two times in their subscriber base in 2024 compared to 2023.
- FanCode received a $50 million funding from Dream Sports in 2021.
- Content Strategy and Focus:
- FanCode deliberately avoids focusing on top-tier sports leagues like IPL, ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, and FIFA, which are already well-monetized by large companies such as Disney, Sony, and Viacom18 (JioCinema). They made an exception for Formula 1 this year for example.
- Fancode struck an exclusive partnership with Formula 1 for broadcasting rights in the Indian market for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Additionally, Formula 1 (F1) (With 60 million fans in India, F1 aims to significantly increase its fan base in the country through this strategic partnership with FanCode) will not be available for streaming on any linear platforms during the two seasons, Yannick Colaco, co-founder of FanCode, and Michaella Snoeck, head of media rights at Formula 1, said in a joint interaction with Mint.
- The platform aims to aggregate 100 million users from 10,000 smaller events, recognizing the potential of emerging sports in India.
- In 2022, FanCode streamed approximately 6,500 matches, with about 4,500 being cricket matches. However, the platform then aimed to diversify its content, with streaming 50% of non-cricket content in 2023.