T20 World Cup in Australia most-watched event in women’s cricket history, reveals ICC
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has claimed record viewership of the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia, with the tournament garnering 1.1 billion video views through their digital channels and 5.4 billion viewing minutes in India.
The tally is the highest viewership count in the history of women's cricket, ten times more than the previous most successful women's cricket event: the 2017 ODI World Cup. These numbers also make it the second-most successful ICC event ever after the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup.
The ICC believes that India's participation in the finals of both the tournaments significantly increased the viewership. In an official press release, the cricket governing body said:
“These figures (for 2020 T20) World Cup make it the second most successful ICC event ever after the World Cup 2019 and that trend continued via broadcast with the final achieving record viewership worldwide. India’s success in making it to the final boosted audience interest, with total viewership for the knockout stages recorded at 423% higher than 2018. India live viewing hours were 86.15m which is 152% higher than the 2018 tournament, driven by India’s success and the broadcast of select India matches by Star Sports, in five languages (English, Hindi, Tamil, Telegu, and Kannada) in India.”
South Africa vs Australia most-watched match: ICC
South Africa’s semi-final defeat to Australia was the most-watched match of the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup, with an average audience of 39,000. These figures are 54% higher than the most-watched match in 2018, which had an average audience of 25,000.
The ICC revealed:
"This is 54% higher than the most watched match in 2018, which was South Africa v England group stage match with 25,000 average audience."
Meanwhile, the live viewing hours in South Africa were 647000, which was 40 % more than in 2018.