Mumbai: Go a couple of decades back and cricket was still the most watched sport in India. But it only enjoyed the cursory following of a huge strata of its vast population – children and women. With Test cricket being played at a certain pace and ODI cricket taking its own time, a big chunk of the following cricket now enjoys was yet to jump on board.
Not totally by design, the advent of the social media age coincided with cricket getting a double booster dose – the arrival of T20 cricket and the integration of the women’s game into cricket’s mainstream.
IPL arrived in 2008 and the 2009 women’s ODI World Cup was the first after the integration of women’s cricket in the ICC fold. That paved the way for cricket to become a truly family viewing experience. As the India women’s team began to challenge the world – finalists in the 2017 ODI World Cup and the 2020 T20 World Cup – it led to a huge surge in following.
How much of this fan frenzy has translated into a commercial uptick? International Cricket Council (ICC) sold 103 matches over a four-year media rights cycle (2024-27) separately and they were lapped up by India’s leading player, JioStar. Though the proceeds were known to be a fraction of the $3billion bumper outcome from men’s cricket, the market saw it as healthy progress.
If the difference in WPL-IPL valuation is seen as a benchmark (WPL is 2% of IPL), that’s promising for a property which used to be handed out as a freebie.
To put in context, staging ICC women’s world events incur losses. The cost-revenue deficit of the 2025 ODI World Cup played across five venues in India-Sri Lanka was $31,386. For the 2024 T20 World Cup, played over two venues in the UAE, it was $24,958. These expenses are covered by media-rights earnings to make the women’s vertical an independent entity.
In another push towards making women’s events self-sustaining, 2025 onwards ICC women’s events have had standalone sponsors. It announced a landmark women’s only global partnership with Google ahead of the 2025 edition and the AI outreach for the Indian consumer space played out through advertising during the tournament. Unilever’s Rexona too signed global women-specific deals through 2027.
The sponsors got a bang for their buck thanks to the Indian team’s superlative performance in a tournament played during India’s festive season. It broke many viewership records. The India-South Africa final drew 185 million users to the JioStar app, equalling the viewership of the 2024 T20 men’s final, as per ICC. Another 92 million tuned in on Connected TV, equalling figures from the men’s T20 2024 final and the 2023 ODI World Cup final.
India’s winning campaign made the final viewership the highest women’s cricket – greater than the combined total of the last three women’s World Cups, according to broadcasters. Harmanpreet Kaur’s final-winning catch drew a peak concurrency of 21 million viewers.
“Earlier, certain sponsors were not associated with cricket because men’s cricket was not for them. Now, they may want to advertise in women’s cricket, not for affordability but strategy,” said N Santosh of D&P, market valuation experts.
Which begs the question, how much sheen would a women’s event lose if the India do not make the summit clash? The knock-on effect of a below-par show from India is unavoidable. But with these being early days and women’s cricket yet to become an established commercial arm, there isn’t overreliance on the Indian market.
A YouGov survey of 2,158 adults in UK, hosting the women’s T20 World Cup, saw 42% women saying they would be watching the 12-team tournament for the first time. As well as increasing the female fanbase, 43% of respondents were Gen Z and 38% Millennials. A quarter of the men were also keen to watch the event for the first time.
