New Delhi: If there’s one thing Indian cricket fans are famous for, it’s showing up —with unparalleled passion and emotion. But when it comes to the Indian women’s cricket team, that same energy has only recently begun to fill the stands. For years, women’s cricket in India existed in the shadows of the men’s, hardly pulling crowds.
So, when a “Sold Out” board hung outside the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai this Sunday as India and South Africa battled it out for the Women’s ODI World Cup Trophy, it showed how far women’s cricket has come in the country. This, despite the BCCI’s handling of ticket sales, both the availability as well as the pricing aspects, not receiving positive feedback from people.
The viewership numbers on television and digital platforms also witnessed an all-time high. While the ICC and official broadcaster JioHotstar have not yet released viewership numbers for the whole of the tournament, they said in a joint statement last month that the first 13 matches drew more than 60 million viewers, a fivefold jump compared to the 2022 edition.
In the final match on 2 November, the JioHotstar live match coverage showed 35 crore ‘views’ at one point. The number swelled as the match progressed.
Inside the stadium, the sight of fans holding posters of and wearing shirts of captain Harmanpreet Kaur and her deputy Smriti Mandhana captured how Indian women cricket is getting the same amount of the adulation and support as men’s, if not more.
The ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 started with record-breaking attendance for the opening match between India and Sri Lanka in Guwahati on 30 September. Almost 23,000 fans thronged the Assam Cricket Association Stadium, the highest ever for a group stage fixture at any ICC Women’s event.
For context, the last time India hosted the ODI world cup in 2013, only 200 spectators were seen in the stands opposite the press box in the opening match featuring India and the West Indies, a media report had stated.
Though no official attendance figures were released for the 2022 ODI World Cup opener at New Zealand’s Bay Oval, the stadium itself has a capacity of just 10,000.
While the figures have improved over the years, they still fall behind the turnout seen at men’s ODI world cup matches.
A turnout of around 47,518 was registered at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad for the 2023 Cricket World Cup opener between England and New Zealand. This turnout was when India wasn’t playing.
The final match of the edition, where Australia defeated India by six wickets, drew a crowd of around 100,000 spectators.
The 2025 women’s world cup final was played at a smaller stadium. The DY Patil Stadium has a capacity of 45,000. And it was completely sold out, marking the highest turnout for any ICC Women’s Cricket event.
Digital viewership on the rise
The digital viewership for women’s cricket has seen a remarkable rise too, underscoring the sport’s expanding global fan base.
The India vs Pakistan showdown on 5 October broke all previous digital viewership records for women’s cricket, reaching 28.4 million viewers and clocking 1.87 billion minutes of watch time, making it the most-watched women’s international cricket match ever.
Even the India vs Australia clash on 12 October hit a peak of 4.8 million concurrent viewers on JioHotstar, setting yet another benchmark for women’s cricket.
Television numbers have mirrored this surge too. The India vs Pakistan fixture has become the highest-watched league-stage match in the history of the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup.
The ICC Women’s ODI World Cup 2022 also drew an impressive global TV audience of 104.8 million, with Indian broadcasters accounting for a major portion of those numbers.
In total, the 2022 tournament racked up 10,308 broadcast hours, including live matches, highlights, and replays. The viewership time for the edition hit 215.2 million hours. On the digital front, the tournament amassed 1.64 billion video views across ICC’s online platforms.
Social media engagement was equally strong, with 164 million interactions (likes, shares, and comments), while the ICC app and website attracted 10.3 million unique users during the event.
But, women’s cricket viewership is yet to match the 2023 men’s ODI World Cup viewership in India, which broke several viewership records.
Disney Star said that television viewership in India crossed more than half a billion with 518 million tuning in for the 2023 men’s World Cup across the six weeks of the tournament.
Total consumption on TV was 422 billion minutes, making it the biggest World Cup ever, according to Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) data in India.
The final also broke digital viewership records, with Disney+Hotstar (which merged with JioCinema in February this year to become JioHotstar) recording 59 million viewers, the most for any live sports event.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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