More than 2.5 million fans have attended the first five seasons of English cricket's short-format The Hundred competition, according to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
Following the conclusion of the 2025 editions of the men's and women's tournaments on Sunday (August 31), the ECB released its attendance figures, showing that since the overall tournament launched in 2021, 1.5 million fans have attended women's matches from The Hundred.
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The numbers come shortly after the completion of sales of stakes in six of the eight franchise teams, to private investors, which is bringing over £500 million (at the time of writing, $669.4 million) into ECB coffers.
In terms of specific attendance figures, the ECB has claimed 580,000 tickets were issued for the 2025 season, and there were record attendances at four of the eight grounds, including for the final of the women's competition at the iconic Lord's in London.
The ECB has said this year has also seen the record for total attendance at a women's cricket competition broken, with over 349,000 fans in attendance.
Over the five years, meanwhile, 530,000 tickets categorised as 'junior' have been sold, according to the ECB.
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By GlobalDataIn terms of viewing figures, the competition is shown live domestically by pay-TV heavyweight Sky and by the UK's BBC public-service broadcaster, in deals running through 2028.
The ECB has now said that Sky's group-stage audiences were up 38% on average from the equivalent numbers in 2024, and that the BBC recorded 2.2 million online viewing requests for action from The Hundred this year, up from 1.6 million last year.
The Oval Invincibles won their third men's title in a row over the weekend, while the women's competition was won for the first time by the Northern Superchargers.
Vikram Banerjee, managing director of The Hundred (who has been in charge of the stake sales process), has commented: "The aim of this competition from day one was to throw open cricket’s doors and bring more people into our game – these numbers demonstrate that has been happening and everyone involved in The Hundred can be rightly proud of that.
"Now, as we welcome our new partners into the competition, the challenge is to take The Hundred even further – to ensure it becomes a part of the summer calendar that no cricket fan wants to miss and to deepen fans’ connection with their team and the competition.”
The six teams to now formally have stakes held by private owners – encompassing both the men's and women's teams – are: Nothern Superchargers in Leeds, now 100% owned by the Sun Group; Manchester Originals, now 70% owned by RPSG Group; London Spirit, now 50% owned by US-based consortium Tech Titans; Welsh Fire in Cardiff, of which team the Washington Freedom outfit now owns 49%; Southern Brave in Southampton, 49% owned by the GMR Group (although that entity also owns the host county cricket club, Hampshire); and Birmingham Phoenix, 49% owned by Knighthead Capital Management.
The Sun Group and RPSG Group are India-based, with the other new owners all hailing from the US.
If and when the sales of the stakes in Oval Invincibles (London) and Trent Rockets (Nottingham) are completed, Indian heavyweight Reliance Industries will own 49% of the South London team, while Cain International & Ares Management will hold the same size stake in the Rockets.
Investors will take operational control of the six aforementioned teams from October 1.
In terms of commercial activity around the eight-franchise competition, early August saw British snack producer KP Snacks extend and alter its deal through which it sponsors The Hundred.
Next year, a range of KP Snacks brands, including McCoys, Pom-Bears, KP Nuts, and Hula-Hoops, will become sleeve sponsors of the eight teams.
This will represent a change in KP Snacks' inventory – up to now, each team has had one brand from that firm as its main front-of-shirt sponsor.
Next season, when all eight new investors are in place – and those with majority stakes take operational control – each team from the competition will be able to secure their own front-of-shirt sponsor, Sportcal (GlobalData Sport) understands. This, therefore, creates the need to reallocate KP Snacks' branding assets on the teams' kits to the sleeves.
