Business of The Hundred (Cricket) 2022 - Property Profile, Sponsorship and Media Landscape

An analysis of the business landscape of The Hundred 2022, including a deep look at the competitions media landscape and sponsorship portfolio

The Hundred competition has only seen a small increase of 50,200 combined followers compared to the publisher’s last recording of The Hundred’s social media followings on the tournament's platforms. Ahead of the second edition of the competition, the Southern Brave, Oval Invincibles and Birmingham Phoenix are the highest followed teams, which is highly likely down to these teams' successes in last year’s inaugural competition. This year sees three brands renew their partnerships with The Hundred. New Balance will continue as the competition’s official kit partner, Masuri as the Official Helmet Supplier and Universal Pictures as an Official Partner. These three combined deals are expected to generate $1.715 million for The Hundred 2022. For the second edition of the competition the ECB continues to hold the commercial rights for The Hundred with individual teams unable to sign any exclusive partnerships. For instance, the ECB has an exclusive deal with commercial agency CSM Sport and Entertainment.

For 2022 the partnership between the ECB, BBC and Sky continues, the five-year contract runs until 2024. The first competition saw extremely positive viewing figures with 57% of viewers having not watched any other live ECB cricket in 2021.

Given the success of the tournament in year one, The Hundred has not had to change the commercial structure but has rather focused on continuing to partner with brands and businesses that complement the competition. Tournament sponsors were delighted with the commercial success of the inaugural competition, which included a fully taken up commercial partnership program. The premise of The Hundred attracted brands that may not have traditionally considered the sport. CSM emphasized that Sky, the BBC and the ECB were delighted with the broadcasting numbers in 2021. The inaugural edition of The Hundred attracted 9 million new viewers to cricket, 50% of which were women. Ticket sales for 2022 are outpacing where they were at the equivalent stage of 2021 and the ECB expects to improve on the 91% of capacity achieved last year.

Key Highlights

The IPL continues to still stand out as the most popular cricket competition for online following, a big factor in this is India’s population of over 1.4 billion people and the national sport is cricket. With only a small increase in The Hundred teams’ overall Instagram followings since the publisher's last recording of these figures, there has been no change in position of the average Instagram followings. The second edition of The Hundred finds three new brands partnering with the competition, Sage, Robinsons and Xplora, while Lego have ended their partnership with the tournament. Cazoo, the tournament Principal Partner will once again provide The Hundred with the highest sponsorship value, the deal estimated to be worth $2.75 million annually. The Hundred 2022 will once again see the tournament broadcast across key cricket markets in Asia, Oceania, Southern Africa and the Caribbean.

Scope

• This report provides an overview of the competition including its Sponsorship Portfolio, Media Landscape and Social Media activity. An analysis of The Hundred’s sponsors is included and the estimated annual values for some of these deals. Information regarding The Hundred’s Media Landscape and Social Media changes compared to the previous year’s tournament is also included. Finally an Agency Insight also takes place with Kevin Vandrau, Group Commercial Director at CSM providing insight on the commercial activity of The Hundred 2022

Reasons to Buy

• For those wanting an in-depth analysis of how the inaugural competition performed, in the sense of both business and popularity, as well as the changes that have been made for the second edition of The Hundred regarding sponsorship, media and social media.