A collaborative post by Jen Vile, marketing director for the upcoming 2026 ICC Women's T20 World Cup cricket tournament.
Vile discusses how this is cricket’s moment to capitalise on the increasing commercialisation of women’s sport.
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Bringing the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 to home soil this summer is about far more than hosting another global sporting event. It represents a defining moment for how women’s sport is valued, experienced and commercialised. This World Cup sits at the intersection of performance, purpose and partnership – a point where commercial strategy must rise to meet cultural momentum.
From June 12 to July 5, England and Wales will host 33 matches across seven iconic venues over 28 days of high-octane, world-class cricket. As January hit, we’d already sold over 100,000 tickets for the tournament, surpassing the number of tickets sold for the previous women’s World Cup on home soil back in 2017 and showing clear demand for elite women’s sport. Our ambitions are unapologetically big: record-breaking attendances, unparalleled viewership, and unprecedented revenue generation. But those outcomes are not the end goal. They are the means to something more fundamental – resetting what “normal” looks like for women’s cricket and ensuring it becomes as mainstream, celebrated and culturally embedded as any global World Cup in any sport.
The sponsorship landscape is evolving rapidly. Brands are no longer satisfied with passive visibility; they are seeking relevance, measurable impact and meaningful connection with audiences. The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 offers a powerful proof point that women’s sport is not an emerging opportunity, but a premium commercial platform – one capable of delivering both scale and substance, spectacle and societal impact.
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By GlobalDataIn September, we decided to launch our above-the-line campaign, Catch the Spirit, six months earlier than planned. This was driven by a stark insight: two-thirds of sports fans were unaware that the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup would be hosted in England and Wales this year. Faced with that reality, we chose to act early – a clear statement of intent.
Audience insight has also shaped a fundamental shift in our approach. We are moving away from selling the progress of women’s sport and towards selling the sport itself. The most powerful driver of interest is what happens on the pitch – world-class performances, elite competition and high-stakes moments. By tapping into FOMO and a desire for belonging, we aim to build connection, passion and community around the women’s game.
Global events have the power to cut through everyday life, creating moments that feel unmissable and shared. That principle sits at the heart of Catch the Spirit – a campaign designed not just to drive visibility, but to embed the World Cup into national conversation.
But visibility alone is not enough. Sustainable growth depends on behaviour change at pace and scale. Sell-outs matter. Trending moments matter. Social proof matters. Fans need to see that everyone is watching, attending and talking about women’s cricket.
Central to this strategy are the players themselves. Elevating stars such as Nat Sciver-Brunt, Smriti Mandhana and Ellyse Perry is not just storytelling – it is a proven driver of emotional connection, repeat attendance and long-term fandom. When fans know the players, they invest in the journey.
The changing commercial model in sport
Across the industry, we are seeing a decisive shift away from sponsorship as simple screen time. Changing fan consumption habits mean value is increasingly defined by depth of engagement rather than duration of exposure. Fans are watching across multiple platforms, interacting in real time, and expecting brands to add to – not interrupt – their experience.
Women’s sport, and cricket in particular, is uniquely positioned within this evolution. Audiences are highly engaged and growing at pace. Yet despite this growth, women’s sport continues to face the challenge of translating major event spikes in attention into longer term momentum after the final whistle has been blown or the final ball bowled.
The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 allows sponsors to participate in a moment of acceleration – but the real opportunity lies in converting fleeting interest into habitual fandom, and casual viewers into committed supporters.
Women’s sport as a commercial growth engine
When we look back a decade, the scale of progress in women’s cricket is striking. In 2014, England women’s matches drew average crowds of just 1,500. Fewer than 12% of cricket clubs had a women’s or girls’ section. There were no fully professional female cricketers in England – or anywhere in the world.
Today, over 1.5 million fans have attended women’s matches in The Hundred tournament since 2021. A fully professional women’s domestic structure has launched, with equal starting salaries for female players alongside their male peers. Women’s grassroots teams are growing at 21% year-on-year. These outcomes demonstrate what is possible when ambition meets investment and collective intent.
And yet, as the Sport Industry Report highlights, women’s sport continues to face everyday barriers to growth. Beyond funding, the second biggest barrier cited by fans and industry leaders alike is “social attitudes” – the collective beliefs and perceptions that still frame women’s sport as secondary.
Our own research reflects this challenge. 37% percent of the UK public still view cricket primarily as a sport for men and boys, however this has decreased from 40% in 2025 and the World Cup is an opportunity to accelerate that decrease. Shifting this perception – resetting normal – sits at the heart of our strategy for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026.
The power of home soil
Hosting the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup domestically amplifies women’s cricket’s commercial and cultural impact in ways that are both immediate and enduring. Local relevance enables deeper community engagement, stronger grassroots connections and more integrated partner activations. It extends the tournament’s footprint beyond stadia – into schools, clubs, digital spaces and everyday conversations.
For many fans, this will be their first World Cup experienced live on home soil. That sense of rarity and prestige matters. We talk about “capital W, capital C”, which carries weight with sports fans, and data shows cricket fans are more likely to attend women’s sport than fans of other sports. This creates a unique opportunity to accelerate the transition from men’s cricket fandom into long-term support for the women’s game.
Home soil is not just a backdrop; it is a multiplier of value.
Partnership and collaboration is paramount
The role of the ICC and commercial partners in this journey is critical. Governing bodies and sponsors are no longer just funders; they are amplifiers of meaning and emotion. When brands take responsibility for growing the game – as well as growing their own equity – the impact multiplies.
We have seen this in other sports, where brands have invested heavily in raising the profile of women’s teams as elite athletes and national heroes, not niche causes. These are bold positions for sponsors to take, but they deliver dual impact: accelerating fandom while generating powerful brand attribution.
The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 provides partners with a rare opportunity to borrow equity from a global sporting moment and reinvest it into lasting cultural change.
A bright future
As the sports industry looks towards future mega-events, the lessons from the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 are clear. Commercial success will increasingly be defined by how well rights holders and brands collaborate, how intelligently we use audience insight, and how authentically we engage audiences.
Women’s sport is not a secondary platform for experimentation. It is a leading indicator of where sports sponsorship is heading – towards deeper connection, cultural relevance and sustained value creation.
The lasting legacy is paramount, but in order to create that, we also need to live in this moment and maximise it as much as possible, and we can’t forget that. We have a spotlight on us and an opportunity to capture the nation with full stadia and millions around the world watching us, and the prospect of delivering a record-breaking tournament is incredibly exciting. What happens next – the habits formed, the norms embedded, the care created – will then determine whether women’s cricket truly takes its place within our sporting culture.
This summer is our opportunity to reset normal. Not just to capture attention, but to capture hearts and minds and create a new generation of women’s cricket fans.
