ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 Final was most watched women's sporting event in India

What’s the Story?

The delight for the Indian Women’s team, surrounding their stupendous World Cup campaign seems to gain further heights. As per the reports in Livemint.com, the Final of the ICC Women’s World Cup between India and England at Lord's garnered the highest viewership in India among sporting events involving women.

The game managed to garner 19.53 million impressions on television as per the data shared by the TV ratings agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). The viewership was calculated across seven TV channels.

Indranil Dash Blah of Kwan Entertainment and Marketing solutions voiced his opinions on the matter. “I think there is enough appetite for content beyond men’s cricket. The audience watching today is a combination of cricket fans and a brand new curious fan who wants to know what all the fuss is about,” he said

Former Indian batsman Virender Sehwag also expressed his joy on the progress of women’s cricket. “It’s a good sign. It’s the public’s responsibility to back the Indian team when they’re playing so well. Today, with social media being very powerful, everyone is far more aware and people are watching on their mobile phones as well,” the swashbuckling Indian batsman said.

In case you didn’t know…

The Indian Women’s team lost the final of the World Cup to England by 9 runs. While there wasn’t any dearth of efforts on part of the Indian women, inexperience and inability to handle pressure made them stumble at the finishing line.

This was the second World Cup final played by the Women in Blue, the first one being against Australia in 2005. However, they went on to lose the game by 98 runs.

The Details

Last year, the Gold Medal badminton match between Carolina Marin and P.V. Sindhu at the Rio Olympics garnered the highest viewership with 17.3 million impressions.

One year later, Mithali Raj and her troops smashed the records by a handsome margin.

What’s Next?

The Women’s’ World Cup is now done and dusted with every member of the team earning appreciations from every nook and corner of the world. However, it will be interesting to see the turnout of the audience when the women’s team takes the field for their upcoming cricketing assignments.

Author’s Take

About a month and a half ago, very few people would have been aware of even the existence of the Women’s World Cup. The tournament ended a couple of weeks ago and the buzz, nucleating the 50-over extravaganza hasn’t died down one bit, which is heartening, to say the least.