Women’s T20 World Cup 2023: Eighth edition of marquee tournament in South Africa shatters numerous viewership records

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has confirmed that the Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 held in South Africa has emerged as a massive success, courtesy of the outstanding viewership records across broadcast and digital platforms.

Notably, the eighth edition of the women’s marquee event was held in South Africa between 10 February and 26 February, wherein the dominant Aussies clinched their record sixth title against the hosts in the summit clash. 

The tournament was the most watched women’s ICC event to date with global viewing hours breaching the 190-million mark, a 44% increase from the 2020 T20 World Cup in Australia. Moreover, the most watched fixture in India was the clash against arch-rivals Pakistan, which garnered a combined 32.8 million live viewing hours across the Star Sports network and Disney+ Hotstar.

Geoff Allardice, the chief executive of the ICC, expressed his delight at the unprecedented numbers attained during the course of the competition.

“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. As a strategic priority for the sport, we are working hard to engage fans and new audiences with our ICC Women’s events,” said Geoff Allardice as reported by the ICC.

In addition to this, the digital channels of the ICC saw a sharp rise of 26% video views across the various channels. This included the T20 World Cup 2023 achieving 1.39 billion video views as compared with the 2020 edition in Australia which earned 1.1 billion.

Despite India not reaching the summit clash of the event, the total live viewing hours across television and digital platforms saw an uptick of 57% from the 2020 edition. In total, the viewership numbers shattered prior records with an increase of 790% of fans tuning in to watch the World Cup as revealed by the ICC.

The growth of the sport in the women’s field has increased immensely and the audience engagement during the event undoubtedly backs the notion. The ICC will hope to breach these records in the 2024 T20 World Cup which will be held in Bangladesh.