We’re less than a month away from the most awaited event of the year – The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022, and conversations among fans and brands around the festive blockbuster have long begun. In India, nothing gets bigger than Cricket World Cups on TV, with the insurmountable passion fans share for cricket. The 2021 edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup had delivered a remarkable reach of over 400 million on TV and with the upcoming edition happening over 5 mega weekends with 3 out of 5 India matches on a Sunday, TV advertisers will see an unmissable opportunity to capture the audience’s attention.
The opening match of the Indian team at the T20 World Cup will be against arch-rivals Pakistan, a contest that keeps breaking viewership records on TV. Last year’s meeting between the two teams witnessed an incredible reach of 200 million audiences within 4 hours with a concurrency of 116 million on television. To put that into perspective, TV had a 10X higher concurrency than digital for the rival clash. The recently concluded Asia Cup witnessed record-breaking viewership on TV with high-octane clashes throughout the tournament. With scores to settle for India, the whole nation will be eagerly tuned-in to cheer on for the Men in Blue in the team’s opening clash in the T20 World Cup against Pakistan.
World Cups are the largest aggregation of collective viewing on TV as friends, families and colleagues come together to experience the thrills of the megaevent. The excitement around the T20 World Cup proliferates to social media and online search as the T20 World Cup delivers 2X higher social media engagement than the biggest sporting events in India, while Google searches witness a 5X uplift during the tournament. As per a global study, 63% viewers discuss what they are watching during a live sports TV broadcast, while 23% viewers are more likely to purchase brands that advertise on TV than digital during the event. Similarly, brand engagement for these advertisers on social media witnesses a 33% uplift when viewers are watching live sports on TV. Brands across categories have witnessed a range of outcomes such as awareness, consideration and business impact by leveraging sports on TV. New age brands that have advertised on World Cups on TV have witnessed disproportionate benefits across key digital metrics through advertising on sports on TV, driving higher social engagement, online search and web traffic.
The proposition of scale, impact and collective viewing nature of the event makes T20 World Cup a favourable proposition for all kinds of categories ranging from BFSI, e-commerce, automotive, beverages, Digital start-ups in fintech and ed-tech, handsets, FMCG and consumer durables.
