Hundred sees 600,000 tickets sold with TV audiences up
Organisers of The Hundred sold nearly 600,000 tickets for this year’s competition, with viewing figures also up for the fifth edition of the controversial cricket format.
The Northern Superchargers beat the Southern Brave in the women’s final on Sunday in a match that drew 22,000 fans at Lord’s in north London.
The subsequent men’s final saw the Oval Invincibles win their third consecutive title, beating the Trent Rockets by 26 runs at the home of cricket.
And the England and Wales Cricket Board has this morning confirmed that 580,000 tickets were sold across this year’s competition – the first since a minimum 49 per cent stake was sold in each of the eight franchises to overseas investors.
Sky Sports’s audience, too, the ECB claim, was up on average 38 per cent compared to 2024, while “BBC Sport saw 2.2m online viewing requests for The Hundred in 2025, up on 1.6 million in 2024”.
Hundred managing director Vikram Banerjee said it was an “exciting time” for the competition, adding that “the aim of this competition from day one was to throw open cricket’s doors and bring more people into our game”.
Hundred change incoming
The fifth edition of the format, which is shorter than Twenty20 cricket by 40 balls, is set to undergo major change after a number of investors – mainly from India and the United States – acquired stakes in the eight franchises.
Some of those changes will be related to teams, with a number of franchises including the Manchester Originals, Oval Invincibles and Northern Superchargers touted for name changes.
Oval is set to become MI [Mumbai Indians] London once a deal with the mega-rich Ambani family is concluded, while Manchester will incorporate Super Giants into their name following investment from Lucknow Super Giants owners RPSG Group.
Elsewhere it has been touted that the Sun TV Network Limited-owned Superchargers could become Leeds Sunrisers.
Other changes could include the introduction of more Indian players – who currently cannot compete in the men’s competition – as well as format, structural, broadcast and sponsorship shifts.
The ECB states that 1.5m fans have watched the women’s competition live this year, while over 200,000 fans have purchased tickets to their first-ever cricket game during the 2025 season.