YouTube’s reputation stock is set to rocket sky high as the video-sharing site prepares to stream the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket in real-time from March.

The deal includes live coverage of 60 matches, for which parent-company Google hopes to sign up major and local sponsors in an attempt to make a profit from its recent acquisition of the site. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube is losing $470m a year, and this could mark a turning point for the brand in terms of becoming profitable. To put this in context, the TV rights deal for the IPL (signed in 2008 with Sony) was worth $1billion over 10 years, then renegotiated and raised to $1.2billion shortly after.

If you look at searches for the phrase ‘live cricket’ on Google and similar keywords on Twitter over the past week, as England played its last test match in the series against South Africa, we see that it’s a hot topic with a large following online.

Though there will be a huge amount of global interest, search giant Google is one of the most popular sites in India, with its Indian version .co.in attracting 31.6 million unique users per month. YouTube will attract extra eyeballs globally and Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman and commissioner, will be able to make his league “a global brand along the lines of American football’s NFL” – as per his wishes.

From a consumer perspective, the matches will be now be available in countries which currently do not broadcast the league, free of charge – everybody wins. Let’s hope Google tests the site to account for extra traffic ahead of time – the last thing the IPL wants is a global audience staring at a buffering screen for hours on end.