This year’s Women’s T20 World Cup was the most watched women’s tournament in history, says the International Cricket Council.
Australia beat hosts South Africa in the final to win the tournament for a sixth time, with the ICC reporting that global viewing hours for the event were 192 million, a 44% increase on the 2020 edition.
“The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 broadcast and digital numbers are another example of the excellent progress that is being made to accelerate the growth of women’s cricket,” said ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice.
HAVE YOU ALSO READ?: SuperSport renews ICC media rights
The broadcast figures in South Africa saw a 130% increase in live coverage, including the final, which was available on free-to-air television. There were also impressive increases of engagement in India, with total live viewing hours across linear TV and digital platforms up 57% from 2020, despite India not reaching the final. Overall, the most watched game in India was the group stage fixture against Pakistan, which received a combined 32.8 million live viewing hours across the Star Sports network and Disney+ Hotstar.
“For what was a game-changing event for women’s cricket in South Africa with some exciting and competitive cricket, there was also increased engagement numbers in other key markets in India and the UK, which is very pleasing to see,” said Allardice. The approach to digital innovation for ICC Women’s events has also seen an uplift in fans engagement with the World Cup and our focus is to continue to provide audiences engaging content throughout the year to fulfill that growing demand.”
On ICC’s digital channels there was an uplift of 26% video views across all channels with the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 achieving 1.39 billion video views compared to 1.1 billion for the 2020 edition in Australia.
Across the ICC website and app, the numbers revealed the highest ever audience for a women’s event, with 12.5 million unique users across both platforms – 20% higher than the Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 in New Zealand.
