Mumbai, Feb 24 (Agency) Star Sports, India’s Home of Cricket, has again proven to be the most loved destination for cricket with impressive viewership garnered across formats for both, men and women. Cricket viewership on Star Sports has continued to show impressive growth in 2022, after the stellar results in the last quarter of 2021, with India’s opening match against Pakistan in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup and the 1st Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia breaking records. The match between India and Pakistan at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup on February 12 registered a cumulative reach of 28 million. This match, kickstarting India’s campaign in the Women’s T20 World Cup, clocked a total of 1.39 billion minutes with 7.3 million AMAs, making it the second most-watched women’s T20, second only to the India-Australia Finale played in ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020, according to a media statement. It also showed a staggering 91% increase in AMA’s compared to India’s opening match of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in 2020 against Australia.
The 1st Test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar trophy between India and Australia also turned in impressive viewing figures, breaking into the top three for Most watched bilateral test matches in the last five years (since 2018). The 1st Test between India and Australia registered 5.5 million AMAs* which placed it just behind two tests of the India v England 4-match series in 2021, one of which was a Day-night match. Sanjog Gupta, Head – Sports, Disney Star said, “Cricket viewership on TV continues to deliver impressive figures. The recent results are a strong testament to Star Sports’ brand of storytelling expressed through its compelling marketing campaigns and riveting programming which has fuelled the stature of the events. Building the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as an unmissable contest between the top test teams in the world with the added context of a place in the World Test Championship final on the line, fuelled appeal for the series.” “The Women’s World T20 is the culmination of a year-long campaign to promote Women’s Cricket and drive support for Team India. We are overjoyed that our continued focus on the women’s game, which included high decibel campaigns and increased supply of content, is delivering strong results, and fuelling growth of the game.
These results also strengthen our belief that Star Sports continues to be the most loved brand and platform for fans to engage with marquee cricket properties,” Gupta added. In recent times, Star Sports has consistently delivered record-breaking viewership in cricket with Asia Cup 2022 viewership increasing by 16% from the previous edition, ICC T20 World Cup 2022 rating 25% higher, both India versus Australia and India versus South Africa rating 30-40% higher and the recently concluded India-Sri Lanka and India-New Zealand witnessing 63% increase in ratings. With an action-packed cricket calendar, including Tata IPL 2023, Asia Cup 2023, ICC Men’s World Cup 2023, and much more, Star Sports is optimistic to bring the country together to enjoy its favourite sport on television.