When TV and digital rights were split and sold for $6 billion dollars for IPL for five 2023-2027 editions to two large media corporations --- Disney Star India and Viacom 18 – a consortium led by Reliance Industries, Paramount, and Bodhi Tree Systems – the jostling had begun even before the first match was bowled in the tournament. It intensified ever since the tournament began with Jio claiming it had the viewers, the moolah, and the buzz all going for it. But was that really the case till the end? Disney claims the highest-rated playoffs match ever with over 6 crores, while Jio Cinema says 3.2 crore concurrent viewers watched the IPL finals between Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans on May 29. But at the end of the day, it's always about the moolah. So host Arijit Barman sat down with Sanjog Gupta, Head of Sports Disney STAR Network for a candid one-on-one on viewership growth to revenue targets and life beyond T20 and if sports on linear TV is still going strong, how long will it remain an outlier?