ECB’s T20 Tournament Breaks Attendance Records

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has revealed the rebrand to the national T20 tournament  and a change of timeslot has yielded record aggregate attendance ahead of NatWest T20 Blast Finals Day.

The competition, canada buy which has moved some games to a Friday night slot, bronchi has broken the 700, sale 000 barrier for season-long attendances for first time in its 12 year-history.

Ahead of tomorrow’s NatWest T20 Blast Finals Day at Edgbaston, ECB today announced that a record number of spectators – more than 700,000 – have watched this season’s domestic T20 competition.

The season’s aggregate attendance of 704,205 – spread across 122 matches and including tomorrow’s Finals Day – is the highest number recorded since the domestic T20 format was first introduced in 2003.

It beats the previous record aggregate of 676,753 which was set in 2010 when there were a larger number of domestic T20 matches – 147 – played over the course of the season.

The average attendance for this year’s competition (5,772) is also up by 12 per cent on the average figure (5,153) for the previous five seasons of domestic T20 matches. Eight counties have also enjoyed capacity crowds this season and tomorrow’s Finals Day will see a record attendance of around 23,000 at Edgbaston.

ECB Chief Operating Officer Gordon Hollins said: “Tomorrow’s Finals Day promises to be a fantastic spectacle in front of a full-house Edgbaston crowd and a fitting way to round-off a highly memorable domestic T20 season which has seen many counties playing to full houses, record-breaking run-chases and all the drama and excitement which we traditionally associate with this format of the game.

“We’ve also been particularly pleased to see a healthy increase in the number of younger people buying tickets in advance, a growing ‘remote’ following for the competition across our social media channels, and, most important of all, a positive response from cricket fans to the new, dedicated Friday night slot for the majority of group stage matches.”