England’s women may have suffered a disappointing draw that ultimately meant the Australian side retained the Ashes this summer. It means the wait goes on for Heather Knight and co, but they can take a huge amount of positives from the series, in particular how they performed when 6-0 down after two matches.
That Test match loss threw them off course, but they came back to almost steal the series in improbable circumstances. The nation embraced the team as they tried to complete an impossible comeback, and now the proof is in the pudding as the numbers have been released regarding the crowd and television interest in the team.
The first thing to celebrate is the fact that 110,00 people in total went to watch some part of the women’s Ashes in 2023. That’s 4.5x more than the crowds that were generated the last time they were hosted in this country in 2019. Since then, the players have become far more recognisable, the game has increased in quality and the public’s acceptance and interest in women’s sport on the whole rose drastically.
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That’s in part due to hugely successful teams such as the Lionesses, who drew huge crowds as they won Euro 2022 on home soil and partly due to this summer of cricket which is taking place parallel to the men’s Ashes. But it’s also the fact that women’s cricket, standing on its own two feet, has become an engrossing spectacle.
The numbers that were watching on TV are just as impressive. There were 5.3 million live viewers on TV in total, while a further 2 million watched the highlights on BBC Sport. That’s over double the number of people who watched live in 2019, showing again the explosion of interest in this Ashes, and hopefully, future editions of the same competition.
It became the first England’s women’s ODI series to sell out and interestingly, 35% of all ticket buyers were female. That’s another step in the right direction in terms of getting a wider audience involved in sport, while on social media, the cricket was a hit - with over 47 million video views in total.
You will probably at some point over the last month, engaged with the women’s Ashes in some capacity. Whether you queued up to get into the grounds, watched every ball on television or simply caught some of the highlights via social media, you have helped grow the women’s sport and raise the interest of this fantastic series.
And it was simply brilliant, even though England came up short. Most of the contests were fiercely contested with England’s three run win at the Oval arguably the pick of the bunch from an entertainment factor. It’s part of a wider growth in women’s sport over the past decade, one that will hopefully continue as the Lionesses get their World Cup campaign underway this weekend.
Whether it’s football, cricket, or something else entirely, women are finally getting the sporting credit they deserve. The country is right behind them, and now the cricketers can embrace the new spotlight. They might not have won this time, but looking at these attendance and viewing figures, the sport certainly has.
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