Cricket's inclusion in Olympics: ICC bets on Indian subcontinent fans

NEW DELHI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has cited the Indian subcontinent's enormous cricket reach, 92 per cent of the one billion global cricket audience, in its push for the sport's inclusion in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (LA28).

The ICC has underlined that if LA28 embraced cricket it would "provide the Olympic movement unrivalled opportunity to drive fan engagement" in the Indian subcontinent, a region where cricket followers outnumber those of any other sport.

To further stress cricket's wide reach, it pointed out that the 2019 World Cup, held in England, attracted 545 million fans.

An ICC document prepared on the proposal to inclusion in LA28, a copy of which is available with IANS, has thrown up some more remarkable viewership numbers about the 2019 World Cup: 4.6 billion video views; 3.5 billion minutes watched across Facebook and YouTube; 31 million #CWC10 tweets and; 14 million new followers of cricket.

The ICC has compared these figures with those of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. "Rio 2016 attracted 191 million viewers in India. ICC World Cup 2019 attracted 545 million," it has said.

The ICC's LA28 proposal received a big boost last month when the Indian cricket board agreed to send its men's and women's teams to the 2028 Olympics, if cricket is included. Greats like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and former Australia captain Ricky Ponting have backed the ICC proposal.

By way of some more mind boggling facts, the ICC has cited its young cricket audience, compared to the older one that watched the 2016 Olympics.

"Average age of a viewer of Rio 2016 was 53; 32 per cent of viewers of the 2019 50-over World Cup in England were aged between 18-32 years; and, the average age of a cricket fan is 34 years," the ICC pointed out.

It also emphasised that 39 per cent of cricket fans are females.

If included in LA28, cricket development in the US could be accelerated while a, American team could be included as a competing team, the ICC has said. It also pointed out 87 per cent of fans want to see T20 cricket in the Olympics.

The ICC is confident that cricket's inclusion in the Olympics would attract partners from new markets and bring about financial sustainability to its member countries. The world governing body said that the win-win cricket-Olympics combination would diversify its member countries' income and reduce their reliance on the ICC for income. IANS

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