Dubai:The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday revealed record viewing figures for the Women's T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia one of the most watched women's sporting events in history clocking 1.1 billion video views via its digital channels.
The number crossing 20 times the video views delivered in the previous edition played in the West Indies in 2018 and 10 times the previous most successful women's cricket event, in ODI World Cup in 2017, the ICC release said.
Despite India being runners-up in both editions, there was significant rise in viewership.These figures make it the second most successful ICC event ever after the ICC Men's Cricket 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 percent higher than 2018.
India live viewing hours were 86.15m which is 152 percent 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.
In South Africa live viewing hours were 647,000 which is 40 percent higher than 2018. South Africa's semi-final loss to Australia was the most watched match of the tournament with 39,000 average audience.
Despite the time zone challenge, UK live viewing hours were only 8 percent lower (at 5.32m) than the 2018 tournament, where England made it to the final. England's opening group match against South Africa was the most watched match with 259,000 average audience. (UNI)