ICC Men's T20 World Cup delivers record viewership globally with 167 million reach

Dubai: The ICC men’s T20 World Cup delivered a record viewership globally, garnering a television reach of 167 million, the game’s governing body said on Thursday. With the tournament returning after five years, nearly 10,000 hours of live coverage was offered across TV and digital platforms in 200 countries. Increased viewership and consumption was witnessed in India, Pakistan, UK, Australia and the strategic market of USA. The highly-anticipated India-Pakistan clash saw a record consumption of 15.9 billion minutes in India on the Star India Network. The encounter is now the most viewed T20I match in history, exceeding the previous high of the India-West Indies semi-final match from the 2016 edition of the ICC event held in India, the ICC said. The overall TV consumption for the full tournament in India was recorded at 112 billion minutes, this despite India’s early exit from the tournament. “We are pleased with these outstanding global viewership numbers, that demonstrate the power of T20I cricket to attract a huge audience across the globe on linear and digital platforms,” ICC CEO Geoff Allardice said in a release. “It reinforces our belief that there is a significant opportunity and appetite to grow the game in our strategic growth markets including the USA, so more fans can enjoy it, more kids are inspired by it and sponsors and broadcasters want to be a part of it.” In the UK, viewership for the India-Pakistan match grew by 60 percent on Sky UK whereas the overall viewership for the market went up by 7 percent. In Pakistan, the event was being broadcast by three players for the first time namely PTV, ARY and Ten Sports, which led to further growth in viewership by 7.3 percent compared to the 2016 edition of the event. In Australia, the viewership increased by 175 percent on the Fox Network. In the USA, which the ICC recently named as one of the focus markets for the sport, the tournament was the most viewed cricket tournament ever on ESPN+. The ICC’s partnership with Facebook was a driver for the significant increase in video views, with a total of 4.3 billion views across all channels for the tournament, compared to 3.6 billion views which were garnered for the 2019 edition of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. The consumption across digital assets also grew, recording a total of 2.55 billion minutes. ICC’s social media channels also saw a significant growth in engagement at 618 million across those platforms, which is a 28 percent jump since the 2019 edition of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup.