Is Twenty20 affecting the viewership of One-day Internationals? According to a recent study conducted via the Tam Peoplemeter System, T20 is by far the most popular format in cricket and is also affecting the viewership of ODI matches to some extent.
The hugely successful Indian Premier League (IPL) garnered 101 million eyeballs while 85 million people watched the T20 World Cup in September 2007. When India played against world champions Australia at home right after MS Dhoni's men won the Twenty20 World Cup, 94 million watched the One-day series. The mother of all battles - India-Pakistan One-day series in November 2007 - also attracted 94 million viewers. Thereafter, the viewership dropped for the triseries in Australia, which India eventually won.
It went down further when India played the tri-series in Bangladesh and the Asia Cup in Pakistan. It went from bad to worse when only 62 million Indian fans watched the recently-concluded India-Sri Lanka five-match One-day series in Sri Lanka.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics also affected the viewership during the series. But the Indian cricket board is hopeful that there will be around 1 billion viewers when the 2011 World Cup will be played in the subcontinent. Interestingly, the ICL Twenty20 tournament, which does not even have the recognition of the world body (ICC), didn't fare too badly. Despite all the discouragement matches managed to garner 55 million.
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