Dubai: The International Cricket Council is the number one sports governing body for video views on Facebook, with more views on the platform than any other leading sporting organisations in 2020, ICC announced on Friday.
At a time when COVID-19 has severely impacted live sports, ICC’s Facebook page received more than double the engagement of other global sporting federations, according to Facebook-owned analytics tool CrowdTangle.
“The combination of one of the world’s most-watched sports with one of the world’s largest platforms is proving exciting for the growth of cricket consumption,” ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney said in a media release.
In February 2020, the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa played out 747 million video views across ICC digital media assets which was a staggering 700 per cent growth from the 2018 edition.
In March, during the Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia, the ICC’s digital channels received a total of 1.1 billion video views, which was a 1900 per cent increase on the 2018 edition making it the most-watched ICC women’s event to date. It was also the second most successful ICC event ever after the Men’s World Cup 2019 with 4.6 billion views across channels.
The final of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 also, recorded the most single-day views on the ICC Facebook page (64.9 million) since records began.
As the sporting landscape changed during the global pandemic, the ICC acted to engage fans with a host of nostalgic, snackable content. As a result, daily video consumption on Facebook jumped from three million minutes viewed to 15 million minutes per day (outside of the ICC live events).
“These numbers are testimony to the fact that cricket truly has the power to connect and engage more deeply with diverse audiences around the world. We will continue to enhance these engagements and serve the global cricket fan with exciting content at the back of this partnership,” Sawhney added.
