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ICC looking to uncouple men's and women's tournament rights in huge step for evolution of women's cricket

Australia celebrate after winning the ICC Women's T20 Cricket World Cup Final match between India and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on March 08, 2020 in Melbourne - Getty Images
Australia celebrate after winning the ICC Women's T20 Cricket World Cup Final match between India and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on March 08, 2020 in Melbourne - Getty Images
Women's Sport Social Embed
Women's Sport Social Embed

The International Cricket Council is strongly considering unbundling the rights for women’s global tournaments to capitalise on growing interest in the women’s game, highlighted in the recent Twenty20 World Cup.

The rights to women’s events have previously been sold as part of the package for men’s events. But after the success of the recent T20 World Cup, which culminated in 86,000 attending Australia’s win over India in the final last month, the ICC now believe that the women’s game may be best-served by unbundling the global rights for the 2023-31 cycle. Doing this is viewed as a significant stage in the evolution of women’s cricket.

“All of our data points over the last three years have shown us that fans are interested in women’s cricket. Our global market research shows that 70 per cent of our one billion plus fans want to see more women’s cricket,” Manu Sawhney, the chief executive of the ICC, told Telegraph Sport.

“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 currently 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 two events have been uncoupled, reflecting a view that the women’s game is now best-served by operating stand-alone global events. There are currently 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 1.1 billion 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, meaning that broadcasters would bid specifically for those matches - rather than get them as part of their package of men’s events, as has previously been the case - is seen as a potential way to galvanise interest in the women’s game further in the years ahead. Other major global sports have recently acted similarly, with the Fifa Women’s World Cup 2019 sold in some territories as a standalone event and World Rugby selling broadcasting rights to future women’s rugby 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 commercial product that delivers value on its own. Look at Billie Jean King and the Original Nine, 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.”