Although cricket has a long and illustrious history, we are proud to see new records being set nearly every year.

For the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, total attendances have ranged between 750,000 and 1.3 million in the past decade, with all expectations being that this year’s edition, in India, will once more highlight how cricket continues to attract bumper crowds of passionate fans. 

As an indicator, the final of the T20 Indian Premier League (IPL) last year saw an attendance of just under 105,000 alone.

In the women’s game, the story is similar. The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup final in 2020 attracted a crowd of 86,174 - the second highest attendance ever for a women’s sporting event.

At the ICC, we pride ourselves on creating full stadiums, but it is perhaps in the digital sphere, where the true scale of cricket’s global popularity can best be measured. 

The digital space offers us unique opportunities to engage with cricket’s broad fanbase, estimated to be over one billion. 

Of all of the International Sports Federations, the ICC is the most followed on leading social media networks, with over 92 million followers.

For context, in second place comes football’s FIFA, with a little more than half of this amount (51 million).

Three key lessons come to mind for how we have successfully engaged our fanbase to date, and continue to do so.

Deliver a personalised experience

Providing engaging content to a large, diverse fanbase is of course a challenge, but with the ICC’s Global Growth Strategy, we have a fan-focused framework that allows our digital work to act as a support function to amplify and accelerate our wider goals.

Broadly this is separated into three distinct areas: Grow, Strengthen and Protect - all aiming to deepen people’s love of cricket, no matter their background or history with the game.

• Grow - building new audiences, using our events and a localised approach to connect with new territories and new demographics, particularly younger fans.
• Strengthen - developing a one-to-one relationship with our fans. Digitally, we can use fan data to ensure that content is optimised to their preferences.
• Protect - ensuring that we are ahead of the curve on implementing new technology and creative ideas, with the ambition to create hyper fans.

By addressing these levels of fandom in distinct ways, we’ve worked alongside our Member Associations to find the balance between solidifying our existing groups of supporters, and connecting with new ones. 

Indeed, our levels of engagement show a good balance between core cricket markets, such as India, England and Australia - but also emerging cricket nations, such as Nepal, Germany and the United States - a balance we must continue to find.

Profile players more than ever

As with most International Federations, events are at the heart of what we do and how we engage.

Of course, it’s essential to fill stadiums, but digitally, we also make sure to focus on creating context to key moments - before, during and after - to take our engagement to the next level.

Central to these efforts are the players themselves. Players have a greater platform than ever before, using their own channels to communicate to fans directly. 

The followership of Indian player Virat Kohli - 255m on Instagram - is testament to this. Only 12 other individuals have higher follower numbers on the platform. Not every player will be a Virat Kohli, but we work hard to collaborate with international cricketers and optimise our combined opportunities.

In recent years in particular, we’ve seen the impact that women’s players can have in this regard. Female athletes have a unique ability to tell emotive stories. Last year’s match between India and Pakistan at the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup is a great example of this. 

In light of a fierce rivalry, the images of Pakistan captain Bismah Maroof and her six-month old baby Fatima, being celebrated by India players after their match, brought perspective to the challenges facing mothers in sport, and demonstrated how cricket continues to make positive, human connections. 

What’s more, these are enduring images - the video of that interaction was one of the highest rated pieces of content from the event.

A constant spirit of innovation

Things are moving fast in the digital space. Best practices of five years ago may not be relevant today, and the same will likely apply in another five years’ time. 

At the ICC, we have put great emphasis on staying aware of ongoing digital trends, and explore what opportunities can arise from that to further deepen cricket fandom.

One area of opportunity in particular is that of gaming. Studies have shown that in any given week, Gen Z are 30 per cent more engaged in gaming than in live television, and we therefore see it as essential that we are present and active in this space.

In June, we were given the opportunity to showcase our ICC Cricket Mobile Game at the Olympic Esports Week in Singapore. By continuing to collaborate within other sports, we’re excited to fulfil the potential crossover between esports and establishing lifelong fans of their physical equivalents.

The past two decades have seen phenomenal change in sport. We’ve seen new formats, new leagues and new digital channels created.

For cricket, the results have been extraordinary, with record attendances and record digital engagement.

Because of this history of innovation in our sport, we are very excited about our future. This year alone promises to be pivotal. 

First, we will see the next edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup in a country with cricket in its DNA. But perhaps even more significant in the long-term could be cricket’s potential inclusion in the LA28 Olympic Games, which would be a unique opportunity to connect our legions of online fans with the wider Olympic Movement, and vice versa.

Cricket is growing like never before. And this is the just the beginning.