The beginning of October marked the start of the biggest cricket tournament of the year, the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023. This 10-nation tournament will be played to crown the new champion of the One Day International format of the game – the final will take place on November 19th. Halfway through the tournament, the World Cup had generated 74 million total actions and 390 million video views on social platforms.
Geographically, the sub-continent dominates social media activity - out of the top 20 entities covering cricket globally, a staggering 13 are from India (65%), and 4 are from other Asian countries like Bangladesh (10%), Pakistan (5%) and Afghanistan (5%). Blackcaps, the official social media account of New Zealand cricket, stands out by ranking seventh with an impressive 2.8 million actions. The chart below shows the breakdown of media percentage share their targeted geographical markets, followed by a table detailing their rankings on social media.
Rank
Social media accounts
Country
1
ESPNcricinfo
India
2
ICC - International Cricket Council
UAE
3
Sportskeeda Cricket
4
Indian Cricket Team
5
CricTracker
6
Star Sports
7
Blackcaps
New Zealand
8
Bangladesh Cricket : The Tigers
Bangladesh
9
cricbuzz
10
Sportskeeda
11
ICC Cricket World Cup
Global
12
Royal Challengers Bangalore
13
Not out Noman
14
Pakistan Cricket Team
Pakistan
15
Mumbai Indians
16
Afghanistan Cricket Board
17
InsideSport
18
Aakash Chopra
19
Bharat Army
20
Cricket.com
Source: Comscore Social, content mentioning “Cricket” and “CWC23”, ranking based on total actions across Facebook, X and Instagram, total views include YouTube, 26 October, 2023
Looking at the top 5 social media accounts covering cricket and their engagement numbers.
Total Action*
ESPNcricinfo (India)
16.5M
ICC - International Cricket Council (UAE)
11.3M
Sportskeeda Cricket (India)
10.1M
Indian Cricket Team (India)
7.1M
CricTracker (India)
5.6M
Source: Comscore Social, content mentioning “Cricket” and “CWC23”, across Facebook, X and Instagram, 26 October, 2023*Total number of actions, i.e., reactions, shares, comments, repost, favorites, and loves.
But when it comes to content, the Indian Cricket Team is having a dream run on the socials. Securing all the top 4 social posts mentioning “CWC23” on Instagram.
Source: Comscore Social, content mentioning “Cricket” and “CWC23”, on Instagram, 14 November, 2023
The World Cup is keeping players busy on the field and off it as well. Big name cricketers are roped in to promote everything from furniture to steel.
With a wide range of brands that he endorses, Virat Kohli is the biggest needle mover in the advertising world.
The list doesn't stop there, if you look at the list of cricketers creating a buzz, a new challenger emerges on the block – Shubman Gill. The 24 year old has quickly become the buzz of the town, becoming the ambassador for big brands like Zoom Cars, Gillette, BeatXP and Casio.
The following table shows five cricketers and the interactions they have amassed during from October 2022 to 2023.
Top Cricket Influencers By Social Media Engagement
Cricketer
Total actions*
Virat Kohli
588.8M
Hardik Pandya
218.4M
Shubman Gill
162.6M
Rohit Sharma
133.7M
KL Rahul
92.9M
Source: Comscore Social, IN-Influencers: selected Indian cricketer, across Facebook, Instagram and X, October 2022-2023.*Total number of actions, i.e., reactions, shares, comments, repost, favorites, and loves.
The economy of content creation specifically for cricket has boomed over the last few years. Now cricket fans are spoilt by numerous cricket-based websites, podcasts, and YouTube channels, etc., covering everything from the team selection to pitch condition to drama outside the field.
Hotstar being the official broadcasting partner for India, naturally scores highest when it comes to unique website visitors with Cricbuzz and ESPNcricinfo taking the 2nd and 3rd spots.
Looking at website data from the UK and Australia, it’s a slightly different story. UK is dominated by ESPNcricinfo media. Down under, Cricket.com.au enters the top 3. The Aussie website is well known among the fandom across the world for their great coverage of the game.
When looking at the demos of the leading sites by market, it is noticeable that there are gender differences. We can see that cricket in the UK has the most male-dominated cricketing following, with almost 80% of visitors to CricInfo being male. Hotstar, the most visited cricket site in India, has the most balanced visitor set, with a 60/40 male/female split. Cricket.com.au in Australia sits in the middle with a little over two thirds of visitors being male.
When it comes to views consumption, the contrast is even more stark – 83% of page/video views on CricInfo in the UK are by men – compared to less than 60% of page/video views on Hotstar in India.
With India being the host nation of the World Cup tournament, perhaps interest has been piqued across the gender divide, whereas for England in particular it seems a male dominance prevails. Advertisers and potential sponsors for the tournament should take note that not all cricket fans are created equally!
As the ICC Cricket World CUP 2023 approaches Sunday’s grand final, only the winner of South Africa vs Australia stands in the way of India – the host nation – fulfilling the hopes and dreams of over a billion fans by bringing home the trophy.
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