Cricket is a global participation and entertainment industry spanning more than a billion fans, hundreds of millions of participants, international events, domestic competitions and expanding professional pathways. The figures below show how audiences, attendance, media consumption, governing-body finances and access to the game fit together.
Contents
- Global cricket audience and participation
- International attendance and fan growth
- Broadcast and digital reach
- ICC and ECB financial indicators
- Club and recreational cricket in England and Wales
- The growth of women’s cricket
- Inclusion, facilities and future pathways
Global cricket audience and participation
The ICC’s market research release describes cricket as a mass global sport. Its research identified more than 1 billion cricket fans among people aged 16 to 69 in the surveyed markets. The average fan was 34 years old. The reported gender split was 61% male and 39% female.
The same ICC study identified more than 300 million cricket participants. That distinction matters: the industry’s potential audience is not limited to people who watch international matches. It includes people who play, attend recreational sessions, follow domestic teams and engage with cricket through digital products.
The scale of the research was also substantial. The project included more than 19,000 interviews worldwide, including more than 6,600 in-depth interviews with cricket fans aged 16 to 69. These figures describe the scope of the ICC research project rather than a count of every cricket fan globally.
The research release also found that 87% of cricket fans wanted to see Twenty20 cricket in the Olympic Games. This is a measure of stated fan interest, not an estimate of Olympic viewership or a forecast of ticket sales.
International attendance and fan growth
The 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup provided several indicators of cricket’s ability to build an audience in the United States. ICC’s USA interest release reported 190,000 fans attending matches in the country. Across the U.S. leg, almost 165,000 people attended World Cup games in New York, while the final U.S. match, Pakistan versus Ireland in Broward County, Florida, attracted more than 4,000 fans.
Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium recorded more than 22,000 attendees across four matches. Nassau County International Cricket Stadium hosted 34,028 for India versus Pakistan, described by the ICC as the largest crowd in U.S. history for international cricket. Its India versus USA match then drew 31,722 fans.
The 2024 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup drew 91,030 fans overall, according to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 release. That was 30% higher than the previous edition. The final drew 21,457 people, 68% higher than the previous final in South Africa. Group-stage and semi-final matches together attracted 69,573 fans, up 21% on the previous edition. India versus Pakistan in Dubai drew 15,935, a record for a Women’s T20 World Cup group-stage match.
| Attendance indicator | Reported figure | Comparison or context |
|---|---|---|
| ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 overall | 91,030 | 30% above the previous edition |
| Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 final | 21,457 | 68% above the previous final |
| India v Pakistan, Dubai | 15,935 | Group-stage record |
| India v Pakistan, Nassau County | 34,028 | Largest U.S. international-cricket crowd reported by ICC |
| India v USA, Nassau County | 31,722 | Attendance for the stadium’s closing run |
Broadcast and digital reach
The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 generated 368 billion global viewing minutes, according to the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 release. That total was 19% higher than the 2017 Champions Trophy. In Pakistan, viewing hours rose 24% compared with the country’s 2017 trophy-winning campaign.
Distribution was spread across multiple language and platform feeds. JioStar delivered live coverage through 29 unique broadcast feeds in nine languages. Amazon Prime Video in Australia recorded a 65% increase in viewership compared with 2017.
The U.S. digital response to the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup was also notable. ICC’s USA interest release reported 7 million visitors to the ICC website and app, up 370% from the 2022 edition. The release separately reported 2.7 million users during the 2024 tournament window, of whom 52% were new fans. Time spent on the website and app doubled versus the 2022 event, and 71% of U.S. users arrived through organic search.
The ICC’s fan zones on Roblox were joined more than 10 million times by young fans in the USA. “Joined” is the reported platform engagement measure; it does not mean 10 million unique people.
The Hundred shows how a domestic competition can combine broadcast, streaming and social reach. The ECB’s The Hundred release says the competition delivered more than 1 billion video views across all platforms since 2021. BBC Sport recorded 2.2 million online viewing requests in 2025, compared with 1.6 million in 2024, while Sky Sports’ group-stage audience was up 38% on 2024. The competition launched with more than 16 million viewers in its first year, according to the ECB’s EDI in Action material.
ICC and ECB financial indicators
The ICC Annual Report 2024-25 reports USD 728.474 million of revenue from ICC Events in 2024, compared with USD 839.147 million in 2023. Costs relating to ICC Events were USD 231.674 million in 2024 and USD 246.489 million in 2023. These are reported annual figures, and the release does not by itself explain every reason for the year-to-year movement.
The ICC also reported USD 12.831 million in other revenue and income in 2024, down from USD 40.623 million in 2023. Interest and investment income was USD 35.282 million in 2024, compared with USD 22.367 million in 2023. Net surplus for the year was USD 474.038 million in 2024, compared with USD 596.014 million in 2023.
The ECB finance page provides a domestic governing-body view. It says commercial activities generate around £310 million of revenue annually. Around 75% of total revenue, or £225 million, comes from TV rights, with around £85 million from other revenue sources. The ECB says it reinvests around £290 million in the same year.
The ECB’s stated annual allocations include £40 million for the England men’s, women’s and disability teams, around £120 million for first-class county cricket and women’s domestic cricket, and £70 million distributed through the County Partnership Agreement. County growth plans receive around £15 million, while centrally funded services cost around £20 million. These figures are rounded descriptions from the ECB finance page, not audited like-for-like accounts in this article.
Club and recreational cricket in England and Wales
Participation has grown alongside investment in domestic structures. The ECB’s 2025 women and girls growth release reported just shy of 42,000 total cricket teams competing in England and Wales by 1 September 2025, compared with 40,000 at the same point in the previous year.
The same release reported 18% growth in women’s teams versus the end of August 2024 and 13% growth in girls’ teams versus August 2024. Clubs with a girls’ section increased from 888 to 1,102, while clubs with a women’s section rose from 1,324 to 1,539. Girls’ teams increased from 2,176 to 2,772 and women’s teams from 2,405 to 2,952. The ECB described those changes as around 600 new girls’ teams and around 550 new women’s teams added during 2025 up to the release.
The ECB’s 2024 women and girls release reported 192,500 recreational cricket games in England and Wales during 2024. That was 12,500 above the previous best. Over the same 12-month period, women’s teams grew 25% and girls’ teams grew 21%.
The Hundred’s attendance figures show a complementary pathway between elite entertainment and wider participation. The competition passed 25 million total attendance in its first five years. In 2025, 580,000 tickets were sold and issued; 23% were junior tickets, 41% were associated with families and 30% were bought by female buyers. More than 210,000 people engaged with The Hundred and its teams through community initiatives, and 530,000 junior tickets were purchased over the first five years.
The women’s competition drew 349,401 fans in 2025, a reported global record for a women’s cricket competition. The ECB’s State of Equity in Cricket 2025 also reports a record 330,000 fans for women’s matches in The Hundred in 2025, reflecting the different scope and wording of the two reported figures. Since launch, 1.5 million people have watched the women’s competition and 203,000 people have bought tickets to their first-ever cricket game.
The growth of women’s cricket
The professional women’s game has expanded rapidly in England. The ECB’s State of Equity in Cricket 2025 reports zero women’s professional domestic cricketers in 2019, 41 in 2020 and 129 in 2025. The number is expected to reach around 150 the following year when Yorkshire join Tier 1; that is an expectation, not a completed headcount.
The minimum domestic salary for men’s and women’s players was £28,000 in 2025. The women’s domestic salary pot increased from £720,000 in 2021 to £4 million in 2025, while the men’s equivalent was around £24 million across 18 Professional Counties. The ECB said it would invest around £400 million over the decade to make women’s cricket commercially viable.
The Hundred women’s average salary rose from £8,000 in 2021 to £29,100 in 2025. Its lowest salary band rose from £3,600 to £10,000 over the same period, while the top salary was £15,000 in 2021. The ECB says the top salary will rise to around £130,000 the following year and the minimum to £15,000; both are future figures.
Attendance and grassroots measures point in the same direction. More than 97,000 ticket holders attended women’s Vitality Blast double-headers in 2025, more than three times the final year of the Kia Super League in 2019. Hampshire drew more than 3,000 for women’s matches in four double-headers, Somerset drew 2,328 for a standalone match against Lancashire Thunder, and the Tier 1 Vitality Blast finals day drew 6,245 at the Kia Oval. Almost 18,000 attended the Metro Bank One Day Cup women’s Tier 1 competition.
Inclusion, facilities and future pathways
The ECB’s State of Equity in Cricket 2025 reported 30,627 girls taking part in All Stars and Dynamos in 2025. Of those participants, 8,363 received bursaries, accounting for 43% of all bursaries. The ECB also committed £8 million of new funding per year into women’s domestic cricket by 2027, taking annual investment to around £19 million.
The ECB’s EDI in Action material reports a 70% increase in participation by disabled people since pre-COVID levels and a record 269 disability cricket fixtures scheduled for 2024. Disability cricket participating teams were up 46% since 2022.
Facilities funding has a concrete local example. The Bradford all-weather cricket dome cost £1.5 million and contains 10 bays. It is set to provide cricket sessions for 10,000 people each year. Separately, the ECB’s £2 million county EDI funding pot delivered 90 FCC projects and 160 CCB projects in 2023.
These figures show an industry measured through several connected channels: global awareness, event attendance, viewing time, rights-led revenue, recreational activity, professional salaries and access to facilities. The available measures cover different years, geographies and definitions, so they should be read as separate indicators rather than combined into one market-size total.