“Amplifying cricket to more people around the globe”: Jay Shah on T20 World Cup figuring in top Google trends 2024
Our Bureau
Mumbai
India ended a 13-year ICC World Cup trophy drought by defeating South Africa by seven runs in the T20WC Final on June 29. The tournament was co-hosted by the United States and West Indies.
Virat was the player of the match in the T20 Men’s World Cup final for his valuable knock of 76. Bumrah, who got 15 scalps throughout the tournament at a stunning economy rate of 4.17, got the ‘Player of the Tournament’ honours.
ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies saw incredible fan engagement across the event and a lot of interest in cricket.
Fans in the USA turned out in large numbers for the first part of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, which was held in the country. Around 1,90,000 fans attended matches in the United States that 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 turnout from Nepal fans and not forgetting US fans who witnessed the historic upset of Pakistan by the USA, ICC had said in a release.
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 US 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 also engaged digitally with the World Cup with fantastic numbers recorded across the ICC’s platforms. There were 2.7 million USA-based users recorded visiting the ICC website and App, which was up 370 per cent from the number recorded for the entire ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022, of those viewers 52 per cent were new fans coming to the ICC platforms.
With the T20 Men’s World Cup making it to the top Google Trends 2024, International Cricket Council Chairman Jay Shah has said that amplifying the sport of cricket to more people around the globe is one of the main priorities for the ICC members.
“Amplifying the sport of cricket to more people around the globe is one of the main priorities for the ICC members and I, so it’s encouraging to see evidence of how much interest there was globally in the @ICC @T20WorldCup this year. #TopGoogleTrends2024,” Jay Shah said in a post on X.
He attached a photo of the two teams which played the final and a screenshot of Google top trends.
The time spent on the ICC website and App doubled for those recorded in 2022 and 71 per cent of the users were coming from organic search showcasing the increased interest in the sport.
The fan zones were a fun place to introduce new fans to cricket through interactive cricket-themed games, immersive stadium experiences and much more.
