WPL: Not a patch on IPL, still impressive

EVEN AS MUMBAI Indians were named the champions of the first-ever Women's Premier League (WPL) in Mumbai's packed Brabourne stadium this Sunday, industry observers are hailing what they believe to be a new era in women's cricket.

- CHRISTINA MONIZ

The fact that the final has seen tickets completely sold out within hours, unheard of in Indian women's cricket, is testament to this.

For much of the tournament's first season, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) made entry for the games free for female fans, while male fans had to pay a nominal ticket price of 100 and 400. For the final, the tickets were priced at ₹250, relatively nominal compared with IPL tickets that are priced at ₹3,500 and above.

Stark differences to the IPL notwithstanding, media industry experts maintain that the property has gotten off to a flying start as is evident from the social media buzz and fan response.

Bhairav Shanth, co-founder at ITW Consulting says, "WPL viewership across rural viewers is very strong and regional languages saw robust viewership numbers, which is heartening." "This means that the WPL among has gained popularity audiences which were not previously consumers of women's sport. Women viewers have seen a growth compared to the IPL accounting for 47% of the viewership, compared with 43% in previous editions of the IPL (as per BARC insights). We can expect that digital viewership is around the same," he said.

Viewership data on JioCinema is still to be published by Viacom 18. Jigar Rambhia, COO of sports management firm Sporjo, remarks that the positives from the WPL so far outweigh the negatives, which is encouraging.