Virat Kohli effect? RCB's victory over PBKS in IPL final surpasses viewership of India-Pakistan T20 World Cup match

The Indian Premier League (IPL) final between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) achieved a television viewership milestone with more people watching the match that took place on 3 June in Ahmedabad than the India-Pakistan meeting in the 2021 T20 World Cup in Dubai.

According to Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) data, a total of 169 million people watched the RCB-PBKS final live on their TV sets compared to the 166 million viewership count for the Indo-Pak match in the data for the All India 2+ age group.

RCB’s maiden title victory the key reason for the viewership count? 

Both matches turned out to be historic affairs – Pakistan thrashed India by 10 wickets at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium to end their winless run against their arch-rivals in World Cups – ODI or T20.

As for the IPL final, neither RCB nor PBKS had won a final in the past, meaning the league was going to have a new entry in its list of title-winning teams regardless of the result.

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And in the end, it was Virat Kohli fulfilling his dream of lifting the trophy with RCB after 18 years of waiting after the Rajat Patidar-led side pulled off a thrilling six-run victory at the Narendra Modi Stadium.

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The RCB-PBKS final ended up recording a television rating (TVR) of 11, which is the third-highest in IPL history. The match also exceeded last year’s T20 World Cup final between India and South Africa in terms of total watch time.

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The IPL final clocked 15 billion minutes compared to 14.2 billion minutes for the World Cup final in which the Men in Blue had defeated the Proteas by six runs to end an 11-year wait for another ICC trophy.

What is even more remarkable about these numbers is the fact that more people watched RCB win the IPL final than the two World Cup matches mentioned above despite taking place on a Tuesday instead of a traditional weekend slot.

The season, after all, had to be put on hold for a week in May due to the armed conflict between India and Pakistan which had resulted in a match in Dharamsala getting called off due to security concerns.