🏏 How the Cricket World Cup Makes Billions

Some trivia for you. Outside of the Olympics and the Football World Cup the Cricket World Cup is the most watched International Sports Tournament on the planet.

To compound that, this years tournament, which started three days ago is being hosted in India - the home of global cricket.

Ten countries will play their matches in ten Indian cities across a 39 day span.

Going into this tournament there was a strong feeling that this tournament will make a LOT of money. There are three key ways as to how

1. Viewers

For starters, the last edition which was hosted in England saw 750 million unique viewers across the tournament - a then record. This edition is expected to increase substantially.

2. Attendance

To give you an idea, the final will be hosted at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad which has a capacity of 134,000 people! Early projections suggested it will be the most attended cricket match of all time as it sold out in minutes upon release.

3. Sponsorship

The Economic Times suggest the International Cricket Council will generate a record $150m in sponsorship revenue from this tournament. There is a healthy suite of brands which are paying a healthy sum to be aligned with the world Cup.

MRF Tyres, Booking.com, IndusInd Bank, MasterCard, Aramco and Emirates are just a handful of the brands who will pay £7m+ for a sponsorship slot at this tournament. There are over 20 more brands attached to the tournament too.

The World Cup is big business and India in particular are brilliant at maximising the commercials.

However, the first few days have been a little quiet.

There was no opening ceremony ahead of the first match, strange for a country as vibrant as India.

The first match between England and New Zealand was hosted in the Narendra Modi stadium with a capacity of 40,000 people. That would sell out most cricket stadiums worldwide twice over but in the cavernous Indian cauldron it looked empty, and lacked atmosphere.

In addition India did not play until Day 4 of the tournament. Many wondered why it took so long to see the host nation play, they are usually on Day 1 setting the tone for the entire tournament.

Finally, despite some of the key matches being very popular tickets only went on sale 4 weeks ago. This has made it particularly tough for some of the smaller nations to have fan presence. By contrast I went to the last World Cup in the UK and bought my ticket 11 months before the day.

There is plenty of time to see the tournament pick up but several posts on Reddit speak of the frustrations of the early few days.

Stay tuned to TLP to see how the weeks progress.

Last week I wrote about Rory McIlroy’s next venture TGL.

His company, TMRW Sports co-owned by Tiger Woods and business partner Mike McCarley announced this week a broadcasting deal for the league which starts in January.

ESPN have bought the rights to show the tournament in the United States, giving them a massive platform to showcase their new league.

SoFi have been announced as the leading sponsor too, paying a healthy sum to be aligned with the new tournament.

The stars are aligning for Rory and Tiger. LIV Golf failed to get a broadcasting deal for some time when their tournament launched even when attracting some of the worlds biggest golfing talent.

Ahead of the January launch I will do a full breakdown of the tournament and its commercial structure.

See you next week.