Cricket On TV

This is a post returning to the BARB viewing figures to see what they tell us about the inaugural year of The Hundred and English cricket more generally.   

Note: 21 January 2022, I've subsequently revised this post for the ECB's press release on The Hundred viewing figures.  

I do have some doubts about the press release.  Figures are quoted but there is no underlying data to support them and the ECB doesn't even provide a source for the figures.  This is an important point, BARB provides its subscribers with a lot of additional information & if the ECB's figures are based on BARB data I would say it is pretty persuasive.  (From 5 minutes of research: it's acknowledged BARB's data has its limitations but it is seen as the best available and at least information is consistent across programmes.)  But if this is some other data commissioned by the ECB I'd be far more sceptical.  Still as I don't know, I assumed the ECB's figures are accurate in what follows.

The BARB Figures

Live Cricket on the BBC

The BBC showed its first live cricket match for 21 years in 2020 and in 2021 extended its coverage to include the new Hundred competition.  Unfortunately the free BARB figures only cover the top 15 programmes in any given week and therefore didn't always include the Hundred games screened on BBC2.  Three games did though crack the top 15, the first men's game on the 22 July watched by 1,242,181 viewers, the game on the 10th August watched by 890,000 and the final with 1,298,171 viewers.  In general the 15th most watched show on BBC2 gets 800,000 to 1,200,000 viewers depending on the week, so the other games were probably coming in at 800k/900k viewers.  

Compared to other cricket on the BBC The Hundred's viewing figures look pretty robust.  The viewing figures for the first game and the final are pretty much the BBC's audience for an international 20/20 game and the only times BBC 2's Test highlights broke into the top 15 were 887K on the 15 August and just shy of 1 million on the 2nd September.

Live Cricket on Sky

Figures for the Hundred on Sky were solid rather than spectacular.  Combining Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Cricket audiences, the highest audience for The Hundred was the 463k who watched the elimination game on the 20th August.  The BBC didn't show this game which makes the Sky audience of 440k for the final, which was shown on the BBC, very creditable (It seems as if Sky viewers stayed loyal to Sky's coverage.)

But the T20 Blast evening final attracted 484k viewers, slightly more than watched any Hundred game on Sky.  Similarly Test cricket viewing on Sky held up reasonably well.  There were some days when day time Test cricket only attracted 250k viewers and was outgunned by an evening Hundred game, but 700k viewers watched the test match on Sky on the 15th August, significantly more than watched any match in the Hundred.  And there were a few other days with audiences in the 500k - 600k region.  I also had a quick look back at 2018, the last time India toured England to see if there was any drop in Test match viewing over time.  Data here was limited as the BARB free figures only cover the last Test of 2018, but on this restricted sample Test match viewing figures seem pretty constant and might have slightly increased from 2018.

Live Women's Cricket

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Hundred has been "good for the women's game".  I have to say it's never clear to me why this is the case and there isn't much to support the "good for the women's game" assertion in the viewing figures.  Women's Hundred matches never appear in the top 15 watched programs on BBC2.  On Sky the best viewing figures were 223,102 for the women's final  - that's a decent figure given there would have been people watching on BBC2 as well.  (Up to 1m at the highest point according to ECB figures)

But generally viewing figures for women's Hundred games on Sky were very low - that's probably down to playing women's games on the same days and in earlier time slots than men's cricket - pushing women's matches into less attractive points in the schedule.  So for instance on Test match days a women's Hundred game would have to go up against the Test match whereas the men's Hundred game would follow the Test.  There's some indication this boosted the viewing figures for the men's games as Test match viewers stayed tuned in but a lot of women's fixtures had recorded audiences of 0.  (Not really 0 but they didn't break into Sky Cricket's top 15 for the week).

The ECB's own figures for The Hundred are that 20% of tickets for games were bought by women.  This might seem a very low figure but I'd say that women make up something like 5% of the crowd at a Test match so this is, perhaps, evidence of The Hundred bringing a more diverse audience to cricket.  

So Has The Hundred Been a Success?

No I think it's been a failure.  And here's why.

I know it's not the most exciting of answers - but I'd say The Hundred's viewing figures have come out pretty much as you would expect.  The games haven't attracted large TV audiences (A Hundred game on BBC2 is no competition for "Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing"), but nor have they been the unmitigated disaster its detractors (me included) had hoped.  But in my opinion the viewing figures for the Hundred are a clear indication the competition as a whole has been a failure.  A bit more on why I think OK isn't good enough below. 

Two reasons have been advanced for why The Hundred was required.  The first financial, to provide the ECB with an additional stream of revenue to replace what was expected to be the falling value of rights for international matches generally and Test matches in particular.  We heard quite a lot about this when the competition was being developed but recently there has been less and less emphasis by the ECB on the financial aspects of The Hundred.  These viewing figures show why that is, with a BBC2 audience of 1.2million for a marquee Hundred fixture there simply isn't enough reach to develop significant revenue streams.  Let's make some optimistic assumptions: that 50% of that 1.2m audience can be monetised and that each monetised viewer generates £50.  That gives television income of £30m for The Hundred.  But from that the ECB has to pay players, marketing costs and fees to such beacons of inter - community harmony as Northern Superchargers coach,  Darren Lehmann.  

Even relying on the ECB's accounting, which I consider very unreliable, the tournament would only make a profit of £10million a year on revenues on "course for projections of £50m." That's not nothing but its hardly a game changer for an organisation with a total cost base of £270m.  If we discount some of the ECB's wilder assumptions The Hundred probably makes a loss - but, hopefully, not a huge loss.

As the Hundred has become reality the ECB has suggested that its benefits aren't financial but rather that The Hundred will increase engagement with cricket.  I think we can all agree there's an engagement  problem. Cricket has its devoted supporters but it hasn't ever been a national game the way football is.  At various times various figures at the ECB have argued The Hundred will encourage, more people of  South Asian heritage, more young people and more women, to be more connected with  national cricket and it's that connection rather than the financial benefits which make the tournament worthwhile.  

So has the Hundred met this engagement criteria?  The only certain answer  is: it's unclear.  The BARB data tells us (something) about how many people are watching cricket but not who those people are.  The ECB's own figures provide some additional insight into The Hundred audience and do give an indication of increased engagement.  The BARB figures quoted above are quite specific and calculate the audience for a programme on a percentage watched basis.  So if coverage of The Hundred final on BB2 was 3 hours long and you watched the last hour you would count as 1/3 of a viewer.  In a way this is a bit harsh on long games like cricket.  To supplement the BARB figures the ECB announced peak viewing figures (i.e. the most people watching at any moment) of 2.4 million for the men's final and 1.4m for the women's. And t a total "reach" (i.e the total number of people who watched one second) for the whole Hundred of over 16m people.

What's more 57% of that 16m .. "hadn’t watched any other live ECB cricket in 2021."  You might think that means The Hundred brought a new audience of 9m to cricket, but the ECB's criteria is very specific "any other live ECB cricket in 2021."  So you might have watched every game in the IPL and turned on for a couple of Hundred matches.  New cricket viewer.  You might be a crusty old county member who watches Test highlights on BBC2 and tuned in for 10 minutes of The Women's final - and thought it was OK. New cricket viewer.  You might have been looking for :"Mortimer and Whitehouse, Gone Fishing" and been very annoyed to find the cricket on. New cricket viewer So it's not clear how many people The Hundred brought to cricket  - but safe to say less than 9 million.  

But even allowing for the ECB's hyperbole there are some positive indications of increased engagement as a result of The Hundred.  For this to make a real difference we would need to see indications of progress in the depth of engagement, perhaps growth in the BARB viewing figures, greater participation at youth levels and some indication women's cricket isn't just an adjunct to the men's game.  Until then the jury is out on engagement.   

So if we could ignore its impact on international cricket I'd say the Hundred has been anything from a moderate failure to a moderate success.  It's bound to have brought some new people to cricket but we still need to see how many and whether viewing "reach" be turned into proper engagement. The Hundred may have made a small profit, it probably made a relatively small loss.

But as the current Ashes series has shown you can't look past the impact The Hundred has on England teams in international cricket.  County cricket has been stripped of meaning with weird 8 and 10 team divisions, a reduction in first class games and those first class matches that are played driven into April, May and late September.  Those changes have resulted in an awful England team.  At the moment 50 over cricket is holding up well, but the Hundred only impacted  50 over cricket in 2021, when most of the best non  - international cricketers played no 50 over games.  Give it four years and I'd predict a marked falling off in England's one day cricket  - hopefully not as marked as in Test cricket, but a decline.

And international cricket still matters.  The 2m peak viewers for the Hundred is insignificant compared to the 8m who watched England win the world cup final in 2019.  The UK viewing reach of one day's cricket in the world cup final was equal to a whole summer of The Hundred. For the moment at least, nothing drives engagement with English cricket and its financial success like a successful England side, the Hundred needs to be either subordinated to the requirements of English international cricket or replaced.