Oct.9 (CRICKETNMORE) - Interest in women’s cricket has seen a major surge over the past couple of years and new research unveiled today by the ICC shows the scale of the impact this summer’s Women’s Cricket World Cup has had on fans and new participants.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The first study of its kind on women’s cricket among sports fans across Australia, England and Wales, India, New Zealand and South Africa was commissioned to mark the start of the ICC Women’s Championship and shows a huge boost to the women’s game. Conducted by Nielsen Sports, the objective of the research was to investigate awareness of the Women’s World Cup, perceptions towards the women’s game and key motivators to getting involved.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The stats from this summer’s event clearly demonstrate improving standards, something that fans agreed strongly with. A total of 93% of the people surveyed felt that it was the best standard of women’s cricket they had ever seen with 91% finding the matches exciting to watch on television. As many as 82% followed the event more than any other women’s cricket event previously and overall 67% of respondents said they would now take a greater interest in the women’s game following the World Cup.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
As many as 92% of sports fans in India believe they had seen an increase in media coverage of women’s cricket in the last two years while 66% in England and Wales, 66% in Australia, 58% in South Africa and 50% in New Zealand felt the same.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Across the five key markets surveyed, 65% of sports fans were aware that the ICC Women’s World Cup took place, which included a whopping 94% from India and 67% from tournament host England and Wales.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Significantly, interest among respondents’ children was exciting for the future with almost 40% watching coverage of the event and 50% of respondents’ children were inspired to try playing the game or play more cricket based on what they had seen at the ICC Women’s World Cup.<\/p>\r\n\r\n