With a new season of The Hundred around the corner, England and Wales Cricket Board has admitted that there is no evidence that new fans attracted by the tournament have gone on to attend other forms of the game. When the ECB launched the tournament in a new format – 100 balls per side – it claimed to attract a new set of fans who are different to the three formats that already exist.
According to The Guardian, a report published last October stated that 31% of tickets for the Hundred have been bought by women, that 23% were bought for juniors and that 41% of buyers attended in family groups. On Thursday, the 8 teams in The Hundred, which received their first down payments through investment from private parties that includes IPL franchises, ECB’s chief executive Richard Gould stated that there is no study to find out if the new fans who watched the tournament tried to stay connected with cricket for the rest of the year.
“That’s probably a bit of work that we now need to do going forward,” Gould said. “Just to check that when people do come in, where do they go? Because you might get some coming in to Test cricket [who] then go to the Hundred, and Hundred into Test cricket. We haven’t done that work in any great detail.”
With IPL franchises buying stake in the franchises, there are indications that going forward the tournament could converted into T20s. With IPL teams wanting to leave their imprint, potential name changes seem to be in the horizon. “That’s the kind of conversation we’re starting to get into now,” said Vikram Banerjee, the tournament’s managing director. “It would be slightly odd to bring all these great people in and then just leave it as it is.”
Earlier this year, the ECB announced that the County’s which own share of the 8 teams can either sell their entire share or part of it. It generated interest from IPL franchises, with Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Lucknow Super Giants investing in different teams.
