ICC weighs up selling rights to women’s events separately
The International Cricket Council is considering unbundling the rights for women’s global tournaments to capitalise on growing interest in the women’s game, highlighted by the recent Twenty20 World Cup.
The rights to women’s competitions have been sold as part of the package for men’s events up to now. But after the success of the T20 tournament, with 86,000 attending Australia’s win over India in the final last month, the ICC believes the women’s game may be best served by unbundling the global rights for the 2023-31 cycle.
“All of our data over the last three years has shown us that fans are interested in women’s cricket,” Manu Sawhney, the chief executive of the ICC, said. “Our global market research shows that 70 per cent of our one billion-plus fans want to see more women’s cricket.
“There is an audience for women’s cricket out there and rights holders, along with broadcasters and brands, are starting to realise that. There is a clear opportunity here for the sport and we are exploring various options to optimise value generation, including the unbundling of women’s rights.”
The men’s and women’s editions of the T20 World Cup used to be played concurrently but, since 2018, the events have been decoupled, reflecting a view that the women’s game is now best-served by operating stand-alone global events. There are planned to be eight women’s global events in the 2023-31 cycle – the same number as men’s competitions. On the ICC’s digital channels alone, there were 1.1billion total video views for the T20 World Cup, 10 times more than the previous record for any women’s event.
Selling the rights to women’s events separately is seen as a potential way to galvanise interest in the women’s game further. Other major global sports have
recently acted similarly, with the Fifa Women’s World Cup of last year sold in some territories as a stand-alone event and World Rugby selling broadcasting rights to future events separately.
“We want to build a long-term sustainable foundation for the game and commercialisation is a central plank of that, which is why we are exploring the unbundling of rights,” Sawhney said.
“We need to take a step forward and for me that is not about the value of the rights in the first instance, but positioning them as a commercial product that delivers value on its own. Look at Billie Jean King and the Original Nine [rebel tennis players who started their own tour], their first contract was for $1 but it was a leap of faith that drove transformational change. Doing what we’ve always done will not achieve that.
“As broadcasters and brands start to invest specifically in women’s sport, then promotional budgets will follow. This third-party promotion, combined with the reinvestment of income, will help our aspiration to accelerate the growth of the game.”