Cricket’s biggest market research reveals worldwide fan following figures

There is always a debate over the most followed sport in the world between Cricket and Football. Currently, the World Cup of the latter is in progress and the followers are going crazy over the same. However, it has now emerged that Cricket also has a huge fan base and the number has gone over 1 billion according to one of the biggest market research survey.

There have been reports of the Test format not being watched in many countries with the advent of T20 cricket. Some of the cricketers have also given up on playing the red-ball cricket which has left the future of the game in whites uncertain. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has also taken the steps to revive it and announced the Test Championship starting from next year to develop interest among the viewers of the game.

T20 Cricket in Olympics?

The survey was conducted by Nielsen Sports for the ICC which revealed that as many as 1.039 billion people are the fan of cricket as a sport. Most of them are male living in South Asia with an average age of 34. 39 per cent of them are female as well with the report also revealing the fact that the Test cricket attracts the 70 per cent of the fans.

According to Deccan Chronicle, the ICC confirmed that it was the biggest market research project into the sport, involving 19,000 interviews around the world with fans aged 16-69. “We get a number of doomsayers predicting the death of Tests, even 50-over cricket, but actually the strategy to focus on all three formats is still probably the right way to go,” the ICC Chief Executive David Richardson said in a conference call from Dubai.

“I hope it (Test championship) will be a significant rise in interest around the world and will add to the number of fans following Tests,” he added. Interestingly, the survey also identified that 87 per cent of the followers of the game wanted T20 cricket to be included in Olympics.

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