The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in the USA has seen incredible fan engagement across the event and unprecedented interest in cricket in the USA from sports fans.
Fans in the USA turned out in extraordinary numbers for the first round of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the West Indies and the USA. In the USA alone, 190,000 fans attended matches that have captivated the country and set the stage for cricket’s continued growth in North America.
Grand Prairie in Texas, saw enthusiastic support with an attendance of over 22,000 across the four matches, highlighted by a huge turn out from Nepal fans and not forgetting US fans who witnessed the historic upset of Pakistan by the USA.
Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York, the largest venue in the World Cup, lived-up to its billing by hosting the largest crowd in USA history for international cricket when India played Pakistan (34,028), and closed its run with a true celebration of cricket between India and USA (31,722). In total almost 165,000 people attended World Cup games in New York.
The U.S. leg of the event concluded in Broward County, Florida where Pakistan played Ireland in front of over 4,000 enthusiastic fans, many of whom had endured several days of unprecedented rainfall, and the resulting three washouts.
Tens of thousands more fans attended fan parks at Cedar Creek in Nassau County, Citi Field and the World Trade Center in NYC, Epic Central in Grand Prairie and Fisher Pavilion in Seattle, while unofficial watch parties were seen around the country.
Fans across the USA are also engaging digitally with the World Cup with fantastic numbers recorded across the ICC’s platforms. There have already been 2.7 million USA-based users recorded visiting the ICC website and App, which is up 370% from the number recorded for the entire ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022, of those viewers 52% are new fans coming to the ICC platforms.
The time spent on the ICC website and App has doubled for those recorded in 2022 and 71% of the users are coming from organic search showcasing the increased interest in the sport.
In addition, the ICC Mascots Blaze and Tonk have been joined in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 fan zones on Roblox over 10 million times by young fans in the USA. The fan zones are a fun place to introduce new fans to cricket through interactive cricket themed games, immersive stadium experiences and much more.
ICC Head of Events, Chris Tetley said: “We are absolutely delighted with how the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup has gone in the USA and the unprecedented level of interest in cricket in the country. To see 190,000 people in stadiums across the USA enjoying the experience is fantastic and the traffic on the ICC website and app has shown the increased appetite for the sport as a result of the World Cup.
“The extraordinary levels of media coverage in the USA was also great to see from Good Morning America to the front page of the New York Times, the event was covered by all mainstream media in the USA which bodes well for our long term strategy in the USA.
“With the USA being a priority area of the global growth strategy, we couldn’t be happier with how the World Cup has been received on our first step into the biggest sports market in the world and we will look to build on this over the next four years towards the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028 and beyond.”