T20 World Cup 2022: Will Australian cricket fans prefer to be "spectator" at TV
A global sporting event is nothing short of excitement, buzz, and sheer joy regarding a multi-team tournament. And the fan following that cricket holds worldwide is not a thing unknown. It is one of the most followed sports, whether online viewerships or live-in stadiums
World Cup T20 and missing Aussie fanT20 World Cup 2022 is already making a lot of buzzes!
While the earlier ODI World Cup was one of the most followed cricket tournaments and format, slowly and steadily, the trend and favouritism shifted towards the T20 format. Now the T20 World Cup and T20 domestic leagues, the shortest format, attract many young audiences. And the trend is set to widen only as the number of leagues increases.
Being the hosts and defending champions, the buzz in Australia for the T20 World Cup is genuinely high. The other reason is that the tournament is happening for the first time in the country across its seven cities.
With Zimbabwe returning to the tournament and more than five teams being the top contenders for the trophy, the match was expected to do wonders. Teams like Namibia and Scotland finding success and giving ICC major teams a hard time is an excellent advert for the game. It also helps motivate budding cricketers from respective nations.
Do fans like watching online more than in the stadium?
ICC promoted it relentlessly as they knew the potential of this tournament's edition. But despite all the efforts, it looks like the hosts have been unable to plan, structure and execute the strategies to get excited cricketing fans to the stadium. Big matches like New Zealand vs Australia also lacked an enthusiastic live audience in the stadium.
With the number of the audience being so low, it looks like cricket is turning out to be a web-viewing event, with a more extensive audience ready to be found in the stadium for arch-rival clashes like India-Pakistan and Australia-England.
With the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground set to host an India-Pakistan match in front of a stadium packed with over 1,00,000 people, a larger and more enthusiastic crowd is expected at Melbourne.
Apart from that, Yes, hosts Australia and, most popular, India reaching the semis would help the viewership and will probably trigger more audience to go to the stadium, cheering for their teams. And imagine what will happen if these two teams are in the final.
Â