Highlights
- Chennai Falcons retained the GEPL title after beating Mumbai Grizzlies 2-1 in the final.
- GEPL Season 3 expanded to eight franchises and secured its first international TV deal with Willow TV.
- JetSynthesys plans to grow GEPL through grassroots competitions, player development, and local fan communities.
On the final Sunday of the Global e-Cricket Premier League's third season, the Chennai Falcons beat the Mumbai Grizzlies 2-1 and became champions for a second straight year.
The deciding match came down to a two-wicket Chennai victory. Mumbai's Jetha Ram, the most expensive player ever bought at a GEPL auction, ended the tournament with 488 runs and 14 wickets and was named its most valuable player. Chennai's Nadeem finished with 19 wickets.
For nine days, those were the numbers that mattered.
Then the matches stopped, which is where JetSynthesys' real problem begins.
The company owns Real Cricket, the mobile game GEPL is played on, and has spent three seasons trying to build a professional competition around it. GEPL now has eight city-based franchises, celebrity and business owners, a ₹3.1 crore prize pool and television distribution outside India. This season, Willow TV carried the league in the United States and Canada, while Star Sports Select, Star Sports Khel and JioHotstar showed it in India.
JetSynthesys now has to make GEPL matter during the months when nobody is playing for the trophy.
That means building college competitions, developing players from smaller cities, giving franchises local followings and finding ways for its best competitors to earn money and stay visible between seasons.
Rajan Navani, the founder and chief executive of JetSynthesys, has a simple way of describing what he wants GEPL to become.
"We are looking at this as a sport," he said in an interview with Outlook Respawn on the final day of Season 3.
Making people believe that may take longer than building the league.
A Cricket League Without IPL Teams
GEPL borrows plenty from traditional sports. It has franchises, auctions, standings and owners whose names often attract as much attention as the players.
This year, the Kolkata Hawks joined with the singer Sonu Nigam as owner. The esports player Tanmay "Scout" Singh took ownership of the Gujarat Wolves.
They joined franchises backed by Peyush Bansal, Nikhil Kamath, Suniel Shetty, Sara Tendulkar and others from business and entertainment.
The choice of Scout was deliberate. He brings an audience that knows competitive gaming, something GEPL will need if it wants an identity separate from cricket.
JetSynthesys could have taken an easier route. IPL teams already appear in Real Cricket. Navani said the company chose to keep GEPL's franchises independent.
That puts GEPL in territory where Indian esports has had mixed results. Skyesports introduced a franchised Counter-Strike competition in 2023 and later moved away from the model. Krafton sought bids for a BGMI franchise league in 2025 before shelving the plan.
Franchise leagues require owners to spend before anyone can be certain what a team is worth.
JetSynthesys absorbed that risk in GEPL's early years.
"We did the entire investment to prove to people this can work," said Jogesh Lulla, senior vice president of sports at JetSynthesys.
Season 3 had eight ownership groups. Getting owners was one problem solved. Getting supporters is another.
GEPL eventually plans to take teams into their home markets. Lulla said a home-and-away format could give franchises their own venues, with different pitch conditions and boundary sizes.
It sounds familiar because it is. Sports teams acquire meaning through place. A Chennai supporter needs some reason to see the Falcons as Chennai's team and not as eight players assigned to a logo for nine days.
GEPL has not reached that point yet.
GEPL Season 3
Finding Players Beyond India's Big Cities
Sukhpreet Singh's route into GEPL started with an advertisement.
The Chennai Falcons captain had played cricket through school and college and reached the district level in Punjab. Work eventually left him with less time for the physical game. He found Real Cricket, entered a state competition and advanced far enough to win ₹5 lakh.
The money helped with his studies and finances. It also changed what gaming looked like to him as a career.
Singh has now played in all three GEPL seasons. He has won the last two.
His story explains part of JetSynthesys' interest in e-cricket. A young cricketer needs grounds, equipment, teams and coaching. Entering a mobile competition requires far less infrastructure.
Navani said GEPL is already finding players in India's tier-two and tier-three cities.
The challenge is what happens after they discover the game.
At present, GEPL sits at the top of a competitive structure that remains thin beneath it. JetSynthesys wants college tournaments and competitions for professional organizations to fill some of that space.
"Post GEPL Season 3, you will see a lot more avatars of GEPL coming out for colleges, for pro organizations, where we can now start getting the youth more involved in competing in smaller tournaments," Lulla said.
A player should not have to jump directly from playing on a phone at home to competing in GEPL.
Traditional cricket has school teams, clubs, district competitions and domestic tournaments. Each gives players another place to play and another chance to be noticed. JetSynthesys is trying to create its version of that ladder.
It also has to convince players that climbing it is worth their time.
What Is an E-Cricket Player Worth?
At the Season 3 auction, GEPL's eight franchises spent ₹62.75 lakh on 56 players.
Mumbai paid ₹3.5 lakh for Jetha Ram, the highest price for a player in league history. Pune paid ₹3.4 lakh for Sagar Aanjana, while Sachin Chavan went to Hyderabad for ₹3.3 lakh.
Jetha Ram then delivered the result Mumbai had paid for, finishing as the league's MVP despite the Grizzlies losing the final.
The auction gives GEPL a rudimentary player market, but prize money and contracts alone are unlikely to support many careers.
JetSynthesys has begun working with players on social media and their personal brands. Lulla expects some to become creators as their competitive careers develop or wind down.
For a young sport, personalities matter. People need to know who Jetha Ram or Sukhpreet Singh are before their transfers, rivalries or performances carry much weight.
JetSynthesys also says more than 200 people have worked on GEPL across production, finance, operations and talent management. That gives the company another argument for expanding the season: a larger circuit creates work around the players as well as for them.
Some basic problems remain.
India has relatively few esports facilities where teams can train, stay and compete for extended periods, Lulla said. GEPL's current venue gives players accommodation and training space, along with facilities for activities such as swimming and badminton.
Those details sound mundane next to television rights and prize pools. They are also the kind of details established sports have spent decades solving.
Outlook Respawn
An Audience Has to Come Back
GEPL said its second season generated more than 174 million impressions and about 910,000 player registrations, up from 200,000 registrations in Season 1.
Season 3 brought broader distribution. Willow TV gave the league its first television presence in North America. In India, GEPL added six hours of daily coverage during the Aug. 1 to Aug. 9 tournament.
The league also experimented with reality programming, fan parks, influencers and broadcasts aimed at audiences beyond English-speaking esports viewers.
Reach, though, is easier to measure than loyalty.
People watching a clip once is different from following a player through a season. A registration is different from buying a ticket. Recognizing an owner is different from supporting the team.
Those distinctions will become more important as JetSynthesys asks GEPL to support itself commercially.
The company still owns and title-sponsors the competition. Navani expects an outside company to eventually take the title sponsorship.
"I don't think the day is far when you will see some other title sponsor," he said.
GEPL's third season gave JetSynthesys a larger league than it had a year ago. The next stage is less tidy.
The Falcons need Chennai supporters. Jetha Ram needs fans who follow him between tournaments. A college player in Punjab or Gujarat needs a competition that can lead somewhere. Owners need teams that retain value after the broadcast ends.
For now, GEPL has built the top of the pyramid first.
Season 4 will depend on what JetSynthesys can build underneath it.
Season 4 will put GEPL's community plan to the test
The next stage is therefore less about expanding the number of matches and more about creating a system that operates throughout the year.
Lulla said, "Post GEPL Season 3, you will see a lot more avatars of GEPL coming out for colleges, for pro organizations, where we can now start getting the youth more involved in competing in smaller tournaments." He compared the intended pathway with cricket's domestic structure, where players progress through competitions before reaching the highest level.
That approach could give GEPL a more sustainable talent pipeline while helping franchises build audiences outside the main season. It would also give younger players a defined route into competitive e-cricket rather than requiring them to enter directly at the professional level.
JetSynthesys is also preparing for the league's commercial model to evolve. The company currently owns and title-sponsors GEPL, but Navani said that arrangement is not necessarily permanent. "I don't think the day is far when you will see some other title sponsor," he said, suggesting the property could eventually support an external title partner.
That transition will be important because a sustainable franchise league needs to generate commercial value beyond direct investment from its owner.
Founded by Navani in 2014, JetSynthesys operates across gaming, esports, creators, and entertainment in 180 countries. Its wider interests include tournament operations, gaming studios, Jetapult, and Big Fish Games' EverMerge. Krafton is also an investor in the company.
Season 3 has strengthened GEPL with eight franchises, a larger player market, and an international broadcast footprint. The next test is whether JetSynthesys can turn that growth into a sustainable e-cricket ecosystem.
The league needs its franchises to develop lasting identities, its players to build audiences, and its grassroots system to consistently produce new talent. It also needs the wider ecosystem of infrastructure, creators, colleges, investors, and media partners to develop alongside the competition.
If JetSynthesys can connect those pieces, GEPL could move beyond being a mobile cricket tournament and establish the structure of a new digital sport. Season 3 has shown what that ambition looks like. Season 4 will begin to show whether it can work.
