Giles Clarke: “The continued growth of the ICC’s digital properties is part of an ongoing effort to expand the reach of the sport around the world”
The International Cricket Council (ICC) today announced strong growth in digital consumption following the successful ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2015 held in July across Ireland and Scotland.
There was unparalleled coverage for the event on ICC digital and social media channels, with overall traffic numbers making it the second largest ICC digital event in recent years, surpassing both the ICC World Twenty20 in 2014 and the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013. The dedicated event website attracted 3.75 million unique users, more than double that figure for the ICC World Twenty20 2014 in Bangladesh. These visitors created nearly 20 million page views, which is more than treble the figure of the ICC World Twenty20 in 2014.
The digital coverage was particularly well received in many of the competing nations with fans from Afghanistan, Kenya, Nepal, Netherlands and USA combining to make up over 20 per cent of all website traffic.
For the first time at an ICC qualifying event, 20 matches were broadcast globally and short form match clips were hugely popular right across the world on ICC’s digital channels. The video content reached fans in over 200 countries, with over 13 million video views and over 12 million minutes of online video content consumed.
Another first was the launch of the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2015 App, which aimed to build on the success of the record-breaking ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 App. The ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2015 App was available for free on both Android and iOS, it had over 2.2 million users from more than 200 countries. The App was very well picked up in the participating countries, and it topped the charts as the Number 1 downloaded sports App in 6 countries whilst reaching the Top 10 list in the same category in 22 other countries.
On ICC social media channels, there was also huge interest in the tournament as fans were given their opportunity to get involved with the global broadcast and interact with the players and commentators in Ireland and Scotland. The reach of ICC’s posts on Facebook topped over 129 million people in July, whilst there was 35 million impressions of ICC tweets during the tournament.
Fans also got their chance to vote for both the Play of the Day video and the Play of the Tournament video, which attracted over two million votes. One video alone attracted over 750,000 views. The eventual winner of the inaugural Play of the Tournament at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2015 was Nepal’s Siddhant Lohani for his remarkable helicopter shot.
The Chairman of the ICC’s Financial and Commercial Affairs Committee, Mr Giles Clarke, said: “The ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2015 digital statistics show the ever-growing interest in Associate cricket across the globe. The acceleration in growth is such that the numbers of fans engaged from the Associate sides competing in the event this July matched the number of fans engaged from Full Member nations at the ICC World Twenty20 in Bangladesh, 2014. I was hugely impressed with the quality of the cricket from all the competing nations I saw in Ireland and Scotland, and cricket fans worldwide have made their voices heard with the sheer scale of numbers that interacted with the tournament online.
“The continued growth of the ICC’s digital properties is part of an ongoing effort to expand the reach of the sport around the world and the ICC intend to be at the forefront of innovation as we enter a new ICC Digital Strategy from 2016 onwards. The ICC will continue to try and grow the game into new markets by using the ICC’s substantial digital presence at both of the important upcoming ICC events, the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup 2016, and the ICC World Twenty20 2016.”
