Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals emerge as most loved IPL 2024 teams on social media

The Kolkata Knight Riders lifted the championship trophy against the Sunrisers Hyderabad at the IPL grand finals on Sunday, bringing to a close the two-month cricket fiesta that was the 2024 IPL season. The nationwide cricket fever that the IPL inspires certainly ran strong all the way to the finals, peaking over the last weekend as fans all over the country took to social media to cheer for their favorites.  With the thousands of online conversations taking place over the last month as the tournament picked up steam, there was plenty of passion, celebration, and heartbreak to be seen from fans across the country on their preferred social networks.

Observing these, Sprinklr compiled a list of some of the social media trends surrounding the IPL that emerged since the first match on March 22nd 2024, to tap into the sentiments of fans across the country and their thoughts and feelings about the 2024 season. 

This data has been compiled using the social listening capabilities of Sprinklr Insights, aggregating mentions from India across selected news outlets, and social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit.  

Most talked about teams - Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians take the favorite crown.

Five-time champions Mumbai Indians would take the top spot in online conversations with 37.6K mentions, for their persistent form through the season. The second spot would go to Rajasthan Royals, with 36.3K mentions. Eliminating the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the playoffs before finally falling to the Sunrisers Hyderabad, the Royals’ journey ended just one step short of securing their spot in the finals, winning them plenty of appreciation from fans across the country.

The online conversations racked up as fans would dissect the poor performance of the team and express their disappointment at the favorites failing to live up to their earlier form, expressing greater hope for the next season.

Most popular players

Coming down to players, M.S Dhoni and Virat Kohli were the janta’s most favourite players, with over 86K and 77.9K mentions respectively. International players also were in the limelight this season, with Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins becoming the most talked about international player through the season with close to 15K online mentions. The Aussie’s calm composure as he led the SRH to the finals of the championship won him a place in the hearts of Indian fans despite the Sunrisers' final stumbles. Fellow Aussie and Sunrisers teammate Travis Head would take second place for his incredible batting performances particularly in the playoffs, with close to 12K mentions, followed by KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer with 9.5K mentions. 

Top cities for conversations- Metros lead the way

Mumbai and Delhi remained the hotbeds of cricketing conversations across the country through the season, generating close to 30K  and 25K conversations respectively over the period tracked. Tournament runners-up Hyderabad would come in third place with over 22K conversations as they gave their fans much to cheer about in their run through the playoffs, while Bengaluru and Chennai would follow closely with 20K and 19.7K respectively.

Regional chatter grows 

Significant conversations also took place in regional languages across the social platforms of X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, with over 82.07K conversations recorded in Hindi. Tamil and Bengali were the second and third most widely used regional languages online, with over 24.7K and 7.2K conversations respectively.

You can access the complete dashboard of Sprinklr IPL 2024 Insights here.