The International Cricket Council (ICC) has disclosed the results of the first-ever global market research project into the sport where cricket has more than one billion fans.
Nielsen Sports conducted that global market research in the three months period from November 2017 to January 2018. Including over 6,600 in-depth interviews, more than a total of 19,000 interviews happened around the world for that research.
While the survey had been conducted between the ages of 16-69 years, the average age of the cricket fan has outcome 34 years. Among the cricket fans, 61% are male and 39% are female. More than 300 million are active participants (from occasional social players to the elite level) while it will be increased hugely if under 16’s are counted.
Coming to the game, a huge 92% fans have shown interest for the T20I cricket while 88% of fans have shown interest for the ODI cricket. For the Test cricket, it dropped down to 69%. Among the participants, 64% have shown interest for the all three international formats.
Among the Test cricket fans, the highest number of support came from the England and Wales (86%). Pakistan (98%) has the strongest support for T20I cricket while South Africa (91%) leads the ODI cricket support.
The study also revealed that 95% of fans are interested in ICC events like Cricket World Cup, World T20 etc. Also, 87% of fans want to see the T20 cricket in the Olympics.
Talking about the importance of that research, ICC Chief Executive David Richardson feels excited and said, “It is the first global market research project ever undertaken in the sport and having more than one billion fans in the surveyed age category of 16-69 alone, with an average age of 34, is undoubtedly an exciting and strong position from which we can drive the sport forward.”
While the limited-overs formats have the significant numbers in the interest list, Test cricket has shown the decreasing value.
However, Richardson is hopeful about the upcoming new Test championship, which will have the first edition in 2019-21, as he believes that it will raise the interest in the longest cricket format.
Richardson said on that, “I hope it (Test championship) will be a significant rise in interest around the world and will add to the number of fans following Tests. We get a number of doomsayers predicting the death of Tests, even 50-over cricket, but actually, the strategy to focus on all three formats is still probably the right way to go.”
Coming to the women’s cricket, 2/3 fans have shown interest in the women’s cricket while the 70% fans want more coverage of women’s cricket.
Aarti Dabas, the ICC Head of Media Rights, Broadcast and Digital, has observed the great opportunities for growth in women’s cricket worldwide.
Aarti said, “There are opportunities to grow in both our traditional markets, where the focus will be on attracting more women and girls, children and families, to the game, as well as non-traditional cricket playing nations where there is clearly both interest and opportunity.
“A global growth strategy for cricket is currently being developed and this research is a significant cornerstone of that, guiding our decision making and providing us with a benchmark to measure progress as we look to drive long-term growth of the game.”
