The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 has shown the world the incredible progress and rising trajectory of women’s cricket, and South Africa is bursting with pride at the success of the tournament.
With record-breaking engagement numbers across broadcast and digital platforms, the event has truly captured the hearts and minds of fans around the globe, proving that women’s cricket is a force to be reckoned with.
ICC Chief Executive, Geoff Allardice, is thrilled with the success of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 and sees it as a significant step forward for women’s cricket.
“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,” says Allardice.
“As a strategic priority for the sport, we are working hard to engage fans and new audiences with our ICC Women’s events. The approach to digital innovation for ICC Women’s events has also seen an uplift in fan engagement with the World Cup, and our focus is to continue to provide audiences engaging content throughout the year to fulfill that growing demand.”
This year’s tournament has been the most watched ICC women’s event to date, with an incredible 192 million global viewing hours, a 44% increase from the 2020 World Cup in Australia. This highlights the growing appetite for women’s cricket and underscores the ICC’s commitment to the strategic priority of the sport.
The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 has inspired a new generation of girls and boys in South Africa to take up the sport, leaving a lasting legacy for women’s cricket in the country. With live coverage of the final available on free-to-air television for the first time in an ICC event, men’s or women’s, the host nation saw a 130% increase in viewership, and overall, the event shattered previous records with an increase of 790% in fans tuning in compared to the previous edition in 2020.
Global Audience Watched ICC Showcase in South Africa
Fans in India also showed their love for women’s cricket, with a 57% increase in total live viewing hours across linear TV and digital platforms, despite India not reaching the final. The most-watched game in India was the Women in Blue’s group stage fixture against Pakistan, which received a combined 32.8 million live viewing hours across the Star Sports network and Disney+ Hotstar.
In the United Kingdom, the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 was the most watched to date, with a total of 6.9 million live viewing hours, up 26% from 2020 and 16% from the 2018 event.
The ICC’s investment in a range of features for the first time for a women’s event, including the VR ShotTracker, a vertical video feed, and a number of in-stadia activations for fans in attendance, helped to draw in record-breaking audiences. The numbers revealed the highest-ever audience for a women’s event on the ICC website and app, with 12.5 million unique users across both platforms, 20% higher than the Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 in New Zealand.
In addition to the exciting on-field action, the ICC’s partnership with Meta produced some incredible content, including a singalong with the entire Indian cricket team, comedy skits involving players, and female empowerment pieces celebrating the participants of the event. This generated an incredible 344 million video views for only 14 individual Reels.
Photo 1 caption: The Mayoral celebration following the Proteas Women’s standard-setting silver medal, at the ICC T20 Women’s World Cup 2023 this March, in Cape Town. Photo: Proteas Women
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