Claiming that the IPL has gone from strength to strength on the popularity front this season, the event's Chief Operating Officer Sundar Raman today said the T20 tournament has grown multifold on social platforms besides garnering better TV ratings.
"As of this morning's ratings, we have had 174 million viewers as compared 170 million at the same time, after 41 matches. The week by week ratings are up. For 8pm matches it's up to 3.5 points from 3.4, for afternoon matches it's 2.0 from 1.9," Ramam claimed after a meeting of the IPL Governing Council here.
"On social media, we have a 300 per cent growth on Facebook. There has been 45 per cent growth on Twitter, we have 1.45 million compared to 1 million when the season started," he said.
"It's the single largest followed cricket event all over the world in terms of the followers."
Talking about other issues which were discussed in today's meeting, Raman said the GC took stock of the various venues' preparations.
"From a couple of days' experience, we feel Kolkata has been by far the best managed stadium in the country. Kolkata police has done an incredible job. Full compliments to the Cricket Association of Bengal and Kolkata Police," he said.
Raman said so far the focus has firmly remained on cricket in the IPL, helping the credibility of the league after the damaging spot-fixing scandal last year.
"Yes it was the biggest challenge to restore the credibility. I wanted this IPL to be remembered for only cricket. So far we have had fabulous cricket. By large we had a wonderful tournament," he said.
