How agencies are spreading hatred against cricketers for Rs 25,000 to Rs 2 lakh

Indian cricket’s online toxicity problem is no longer organic. They are not anymore emotional overreaction or ugly fan wars but a part of an organised ecosystem where outrage is manufactured, hashtags are strategically amplified and hate campaigns against cricketers can allegedly be bought for money.

According to industry insiders, specialised agencies and social media operators now offer targeted online campaigns against players, charging anywhere between Rs 25,000 to Rs 2 lakh depending on the scale and duration of the trend.

Manufactured hate in cricket world

“There are agencies that can charge anything between Rs 25,000 to Rs 2 lakh for spreading unmitigated hatred against a particular player,” an industry insider told PTI.

“To run a campaign, customized stats could be given. Now it’s up to them to make the topic trend. Obviously the rates will be different for hours of trending and trending for days,” the insider added.

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The issue has again come into focus after Jessica Davies, wife of Australian batter Travis Head, revealed the torrent of online abuse directed at her family following her husband’s on-field skirmish with Virat Kohli.

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Days earlier, Shrestha Iyer too had spoken about being viciously targeted online merely for appearing in a light-hearted social media video with Punjab Kings’ content team.

But these are no longer isolated incidents of fan rivalry crossing the line.

The roots of this ecosystem lie in the rapid transformation of cricket’s social media economy over the past decade.

Platforms stopped being mere engagement tools and became major commercial assets. A cricketer’s online following increasingly began influencing endorsement deals and digital brand value at a time when traditional television advertising revenues started shrinking.

One viral hashtag could suddenly translate into endorsement deals worth crores.

“And here entered a very important component — the sports management firms that handled players’ image and commercials,” a senior BCCI official familiar with the system explained.

“The managers would comb through profiles of social media aggregators with decent following. They would be engaged to improve a player’s social media traction.”

As fan clubs multiplied, algorithms started rewarding outrage over nuance and tribal loyalty over sporting appreciation.

What initially looked like harmless fan engagement gradually transformed into something far more dangerous.

Managers, agencies and social media operators soon realised that inorganic amplification worked both ways — glorifying one player while simultaneously tearing another down.

Over time, bots became armies, rival fan groups became digital mobs and manufactured trends slowly began shaping public discourse.

The abuse was no longer limited to players alone.

Families became collateral damage. Wives, sisters and even children became targets in a culture where anonymity removed accountability and hatred became currency.

Jessica Head and Shrestha Iyer are among the latest victims of an ecosystem that spent years incentivising polarisation without fully understanding its eventual human cost.

Ironically, the same cricket ecosystem that once celebrated engagement metrics now finds itself alarmed by the monster those numbers helped create.

As cricket’s digital footprint keeps expanding, the incidents involving Jessica Davies and Shrestha Iyer have once again highlighted how organised toxicity, anonymous accounts and commercial interests are increasingly overpowering basic decency in online fandom.

With PTI inputs