The latest ratings data released by the two television viewership monitoring agencies, TAM and aMap, show that the Indian Cricket League (ICL), the rebel cricket league promoted by the Essel Group, has registered a television viewership of 2.13 (as per TAM) and 1.80 (as per aMap) for its recently concluded event, ICL 20s Indian Championship.
This is a sharp improvement over the ratings that the previous ICL tournaments got. According to ICL organisers, its cricket tournament also got good viewership ratings in the overseas markets of Pakistan and United Kingdom. In Pakistan, ICL got a rating of 5.7 for the first finals while in the UK, it got a high rating of 1.4 among the Asian population, said a statement from Zee Network.
Himanshu Mody, Business Head, ICL said: “The ratings validate our belief in creating a popular and commercially viable sports product with the ICL. As a pioneering product still in its growth stage, ICL has today earned viewership patronage comparable to any other cricket product televised in India at the same period of time. This exemplifies the emergence of ICL as an important sporting event in the annual calendar of the Indian sports scenario”.
Now ICL is fine tuning its preparations for its forthcoming tournament ICL 20s World Series that will feature four teams from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and ICL-World that starts from November 23, at Ahmedabad.