Ishaan Khatter appears across TV and CTV, Rohit Sharma leads sports celebrity ads in IPL 19: TAM Sports
IPL 19 wrapped, and the TAM Sports data on celebrity endorsements just landed like a punch report. Clear split: Linear TV ran a star-heavy 61 percent celebrity ad volume, Connected TV sat almost dead even at 49 percent.
The platform split, in real numbers
Linear TV carried 75 celebrities during the tournament, 35 of them sports figures. Connected TV ran 71 total, 32 sports. Film actors owned Linear TV at over 75 percent of celebrity ad volume. Drop the same crew onto CTV and their share tumbles to just over 50 percent. CTV's celebrity-endorsed ad share fell 24 percent versus Linear — advertisers clearly treated the connected screen as a different lab.
Sports personalities flipped the script on CTV. They led that platform with 45 percent of celebrity ad volumes, the top endorser category. So while film stars still dominate the broadcast era, athletes own the streaming-era eyeballs. That tracks with younger, digitally native audiences engaging more with sports figures than movie names.
Rohit Sharma and the crossover crew
One name cut through both top-fives: Rohit Sharma. On Linear TV he pulled a 22.1 percent share of sports celebrity ad volume — top of the pile, ahead of Hardik Pandya, Shubman Gill, and Prakash Padukone. On CTV, the sports celebrity list broadened: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Rohit Sharma, Irfan Pathan, Jemimah Rodrigues. Rohit being the common thread across both screens is the headline — the only athlete with proven pull on both broadcast and streaming buys during IPL 19.
Ishaan Khatter pulled the same double. He endorsed two different advertisers on Linear TV and two different advertisers on CTV. On the Linear overall celebrity list, Shah Rukh Khan led, followed by Ishaan Khatter, Ajay Devgn, and Amyra Dastur — top five together accounting for around 10 percent of celebrity ad volumes. Worth noting: Linear TV's top celebrity endorsers were all film stars. CTV mixed it up with both film and sports faces.
What this means for the athlete brand game
The data confirms a hard split in strategy. Brands buying Linear TV want star power, mass reach, instant recognition. Brands buying CTV chase engagement metrics, willing to run non-celebrity creative, and trusting sports figures to carry the message. For athletes building a brand past their playing window, the CTV lane is the growth market — younger viewers, measurable performance, less saturation from film-star competition.
Shah Rukh Khan still rules the overall celebrity ad game on Linear TV. Rohit Sharma rules the sports game across both platforms. TAM Sports verdict from IPL 19, no spin needed.
