The Broadcaster's Audience Research Board (BARB) publishes weekly reports on TV viewing in the UK.  These provide details of the audience for cricket on Sky .  This post looks at cricket viewing figures for 2019 and 2020 taken from https://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/four-screen-dashboard/. Results are for weeks commencing 29 April 2019 to 26 September 2020, and, if I have understood correctly, viewing figures are for all the viewers who watched a particular programme.  (So if person A watches a test match from start to lunch, B from lunch to tea and C from tea to end that's 3 viewers although only 1 person was watching at any point in time.)  I have combined figures for Sky's Sports, Cricket and Main Event Channels.  Some Context    Matches in the IPL have viewing figures of around 100m.  The 2019 Men's Cricket World Cup final had a  unique UK audience of 15m (8m maximum audience at any point).  Once behind Sky's pay wall viewing goes ...

2018 was a bad year for Leicestershire cricket.  The usual poor on field performance was matched by financial worries, with the club falling 6 places to 11th in the prestigious  Bentley Forbes Consulting rankings. The financial statements for the year to 30 September 2019 showed more losses.  A loan from the county council has bought some time, but even before Covid 19 Leicestershire faced significant financial problems. The county are unfortunate in being assailed both by specific financial issues as well as the more general issues faced by the cricketing counties.     It's always been hard work trying to grow cricket in Leicestershire's stony soil.  When I was researching my book on  1930's cricket I found there were counties who were only getting by thanks to their share of the revenues from English test matches and MCC overseas tours.  Leicestershire were generally included in the ranks of the struggling counties and, in that respect, not m...