The ICC men’s T20 World Cup attracted a record global audience of 167 million spectators, according to the game’s governing body on Thursday.
With the tournament’s return after five years, approximately 10,000 hours of live coverage were broadcast across 200 nations on TV and digital media.
In India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the strategic market of the United States, viewership and consumption increased.
The much-anticipated India-Pakistan match drew a record 15.9 billion minutes on the Star India Network in India.
The match has surpassed the previous high of the India-West Indies semi-final match from the 2016 edition of the ICC tournament held in India as the most watched T20I match in history, according to the ICC.
Despite India’s early elimination from the competition, the total TV consumption in India for the entire event was 112 billion minutes.
In a statement, ICC CEO Geoff Allardice stated, “We are happy with these fantastic global viewership numbers, which reflect the capacity of T20I cricket to attract a big audience around the globe on traditional and digital platforms.”
“It confirms our opinion that there is a big opportunity and hunger to grow the game in our strategic growth regions, such as the United States, so that more fans can enjoy it, more kids are inspired by it, and sponsors and broadcasters want to be a part of it,” says the company.
In the United Kingdom, viewership for the India-Pakistan match increased by 60% on Sky UK, while overall market viewership increased by 7%.
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In Pakistan, the event was being aired by three players for the first time namely PTV, ARY and Ten Sports, which contributed to significant growth in viewership by 7.3 percent compared to the 2016 edition of the event.
The Fox Network in Australia saw a 175 percent rise in viewership. The competition was the most watched cricket tournament ever on ESPN+ in the United States, which the ICC had recognised as one of the sport’s target markets.
The ICC’s collaboration with Facebook was a driving force behind the considerable rise in video views, which totaled 4.3 billion across all channels for the event, compared to 3.6 billion for the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup.
The overall amount of time spent on digital assets increased to 2.55 billion minutes. ICC’s social media outlets also saw a huge boost in engagement at 618 million across various platforms, which is a 28 percent jump from the 2019 edition of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup.
