India led the viewership charts during the recent ICC World Cup that was held earlier this year in England, according to the new data released by the ICC.
On various live platforms that aired matches, India’s semi-final clash with New Zealand saw 25.3 million viewers on Hotstar alone, which is a record for the highest views notched up during a live streaming. The most watched World Cup match was undoubtedly India’s clash with Pakistan that saw 272 million viewers tune in on TV, with another 50 million watching the game live on digital platforms that streamed the match live.
According to the figures, the event was also the most viewed ICC event ever, with a global cumulative average audience of just over 1.6 billion on TV and another 706 million viewers from digital sites. This was an increase of over 38% from the 2015 edition.
ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney, commented on the numbers, ““These quite astounding numbers demonstrate the power of live cricket to connect and engage more deeply with diverse audiences around the world. The theatre and drama of live cricket is compelling and the added jeopardy of tournament cricket enables our sport to cut through and aggregate audiences like never before even in our increasingly fragmented world.”
As far as the epic final between New Zealand and England was concerned, an audience of 15.4 million watched the match, with another 8.92 tuning in for the Super Over.
Aarti Dabas, the ICC Head of Media Rights, Broadcast and Digital added, ““More people are watching, more hours of cricket on different platforms than ever before. The consumption of live matches on digital platforms is evidence of fans watching live sport differently and wanting to be fully immersed in the sport and this is exciting time for cricket.”