India faced New Zealand in the thrilling World Test Champion final battle at Ageas Bowl, Southampton. Notably, the match saw Kane Williamson led New Zealand defeat Virat Kohli led India by 8 wickets. The match saw soo many twists and turns as rain and bad lights interrupted the game several times. However, the summit clash generated a large viewership across various platforms. WTC final recorded a total of 177 million audiences with live viewership touching around 130.6 million across 89 countries.
The India vs New Zealand final was the most viewed match of the first cycle of the World Test Championship. India provided the most number of audiences as Star Sports and Doordarshan calculated a whopping 94.6% of consumption. Star Sports provided the telecast of the summit clash in various languages like English, Hindi, Telugu, Kannad, and Tamil.
“The viewership data for broadcast and digital coverage of the ICC World Test Championship Final presents a really heartening picture, showing strong consumption across territories and languages as well as formats.
“The ICC always strives to give the best possible viewership experience and will continue to invest in resources that enhance the viewing pleasure and engagement of our fans. We thank all our partners for contributing to this success and their support in continuing to elevate our standards in the coming years.”: ICC Chief Commercial Officer Anurag Dahiya.
New Zealand has a very small population but the country has some hardcore and dedicated cricket fans. Even after the inconvenient time of telecast, New Zealand generated over 200,000 viewership. Notably, the matches were telecasted on Sky sports during late night and early morning in the New Zealand time zone. However, the hardcore fans would have been very happy as New Zealand was successful in lifting the WTC Mace.
The final Day of World Test Championship final clash was the most-watched day of a non-England Test match since 2015
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, Sky Sports recorded the highest-rated match in the inaugural WTC cycle excluding the games of England. Also, the 6th and final day of India vs New Zealand was the most-watched day of the Test match not involving England since 2015.
Also, the newly launched ICC TV contributed 665,100 viewers from 145 territories. The ICC digital platforms accounted for a total of 500 million views across the video content of the match. Meanwhile, ICC Facebook provided almost 423 million views and 368 million minutes of watch time. Especially the final day of India vs New Zealand was the most viewed day on the ICC Facebook page as it generated 65.7 million views in 24 hours.
Another big social media platform Instagram generated a good amount of views. As Instagram added 70 million views across the WTC final with stories contributing 10% of views. Adding further ICC website, mobile app, Twitter, and YouTube, added total video views of 515 million.
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