Highlights
- GEPL season 3 will air on Star Sports Select, Star Sports Khel, and JioHotstar in India in August.
- Season 2 generated over 174M impressions and was the first e-cricket league to air alongside the IPL on national television.
- Season 3 features eight franchises and a prize pool of INR 3.1 Cr ($324,979).
JetSynthesys has announced that Season 3 of the Global e-Cricket Premier League will air on Willow TV across the United States and Canada, marking the first time the franchise-based e-cricket competition has secured an international television broadcast. In India, the tournament will continue through JioStar, airing live on Star Sports Select, Star Sports Khel, and JioHotstar from August 1-9, 2026, with six hours of daily coverage running from 4 PM to 10 PM.
Willow TV is the primary cricket broadcaster in both the U.S. and Canadian markets, and the deal extends GEPL's reach to what is one of the larger cricket-following diaspora populations outside South Asia. Coverage will run across Willow Sports, the platform's free ad-supported streaming channel, as well as its direct-to-consumer platforms.
GEPL’s Global Expansion
Season 2 of GEPL was notable for a specific reason: it was the first e-Cricket league to secure a television slot alongside the IPL on Star Sports and JioHotstar. The season generated over 174M impressions across its broadcast run, a figure JetSynthesys has cited as evidence of mainstream audience crossover for the format. The North America expansion is the next step in that trajectory, moving the league from domestic broadcast to international distribution for the first time.
The tournament is played on Real Cricket, a mobile cricket simulation that has accumulated over 400M lifetime downloads. Season 3 features eight franchises competing at the Jairaj Sports and Convention Centre in Pune, with a prize pool of INR 3.1 Cr ($324,979).
GEPL to Introduce Two New Owners
Two new team owners join the league this season. Singer Sonu Nigam takes charge of the Kolkata Hawks, and esports personality Tanmay Singh, known to the gaming community as Scout, joins as owner of the Gujarat Wolves. The returning ownership group includes:
- Delhi Sharks — Peyush Bansal
- Bengaluru Badgers — Nikhil Kamath, Ankit Nagori, and Prashanth Prakash
- Mumbai Grizzlies — Sara Tendulkar
- Pune Stallions — Suniel Shetty
- Chennai Falcons — Gopal Srinivasan, Madhusudanan R, and Arjun Santhanakrishnan
- Hyderabad Rhinos — Amit Mehta
The mix of celebrity ownership across entertainment, business, and esports broadly mirrors the franchise model the IPL established for cricket more generally, adapted here for a competitive gaming format built around the same sport.
The diaspora cricket audience in the U.S. and Canada is real and sizable, but it has historically engaged with the professional game rather than esports formats built around it. GEPL's ability to cross that gap will determine how consequential this expansion actually turns out to be.
