In the process of the commercialization of global women's sports, Indian women's cricket has shown a distinctly different development path. Compared to women's football, which is still cultivating audiences and infrastructure, Indian women's cricket has grown into a mature, well-structured, and culturally significant commercial product, even outperforming some men's events in the betting market.
For betting operators and league partners, this is not just an emerging market, but a mature, consistently high-return investment direction.
Why Indian Women's Cricket Should Not Be Simply Compared to Women's Football
In Europe, Brazil, and other places, women's football is still in the uphill stage: limited audience, fragmented broadcast channels, and insufficient commercial packaging. However, in India, women's cricket shares the same mature ecosystem as men's cricket, thus having natural advantages in fan base, event scheduling, and market potential.
1. Established Huge Fan Base
The Women's Premier League (WPL) adopts the same T20 format as the IPL. Audiences do not need to relearn the rules or adjust their viewing habits, and can directly integrate into the event atmosphere. More importantly, the audience of men's cricket naturally extends to women's cricket matches, forming a rapid fan conversion. Coupled with the driving effect of star players, the fan base of women's cricket is already large and highly active.
2. Prime Schedule and Zero Conflict Strategy
The timing of women's cricket events is very clever: whether it's the Women's T20 World Cup or the WPL, they avoid clashing with major men's events. The prime-time broadcast maximizes attention, and audiences do not need to "switch content" between different events. In contrast, women's football often gets drowned out by the attention to men's football leagues.
3. Broadly Accessible Broadcasting and Promotion
Viacom18 has invested over $100 million in broadcasting funds for women's cricket and broadcasts it for free on India's largest digital platform, JioCinema. This not only breaks down viewing barriers but also forms high visibility through social media, advertising, and platform recommendations. Women's football, with its fragmented broadcasting rights and lack of promotional budget, struggles to achieve similar exposure.
4. Strong Cultural and Emotional Value
Cricket is not just a sport, but a national symbol of India. The rise of women's cricket represents a new narrative that "Indian girls can also win honors for the country." This emotional investment greatly enhances audience stickiness to the event and directly translates into high frequency of betting and increased player lifecycle value (LTV).
Ignoring Women's Cricket Traffic Equals Handing Over Profits
In betting and league marketing, user traffic is the source of profit. Indian women's cricket naturally has a huge audience base and high engagement levels. If platforms choose to ignore this market, it means not only missing growth opportunities but also handing over profits to competitors.
Data Proves Everything: The Commercial Potential of Women's Cricket
Market research and viewership data fully demonstrate its explosive growth:
Search popularity rose by 103% within a year, with monthly search volume reaching 223 million times (Kantar India).
The 2020 Women's T20 World Cup final attracted 9.02 million TV viewers, with a total viewing time of 54 billion minutes.
The 2023 Women's T20 World Cup set a record with 1.92 billion hours watched, a 44% increase from 2020.
In 2023, the TV audience for Indian women's cricket exceeded 105 million, second only to the Men's T20 World Cup (167 million), but with a faster growth rate.
The 2022 Women's ODI World Cup on the ICC digital platform had a record 1.64 billion video views.
These numbers not only shatter the stereotype that "women's sports are not attractive," but also prove the huge potential of the betting market. According to 1xBet data, the betting amounts on women's cricket events (such as WPL, Women's World Cup) even surpass some men's events, including India vs. Bangladesh matches, BPL, and even the Premier League.
2025 ICC Women's Cricket World Cup: A New Commercial Opportunity
On September 30, 2025, India will co-host the 13th ICC Women's ODI World Cup with Sri Lanka. This quadrennial event will be held in five international venues and achieve full media coverage. For brands and betting companies, this is not only a sports feast but also a major commercial test.
1xBet has launched a major marketing campaign—"2025 World Cup Queen's Cricket Championship." Participants will have the chance to win high-value prizes such as a 16-inch MacBook Pro M4, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and Apple Watch Series 10, aiming to leverage the event's heat to expand user participation and strengthen betting stickiness.
Why This Is a Definite Commercial Decision
Unlike many women's sports still in the experimental stage, Indian women's cricket already has a complete commercial ecosystem:
Well-established infrastructure: Stable event system and high-standard venues.
Huge media investment: Mainstream broadcasters invest heavily to ensure exposure.
Huge audience base: Hundreds of millions of fans, growing rapidly.
Mature betting market: Proven to bring continuous high returns.
This means that investing in women's cricket is not an "experiment," but a proven high-return commercial decision. Most 1xPartners have already achieved stable income through women's cricket and continue to expand profit margins in partnership cooperation.
Conclusion
The rise of Indian women's cricket is not just an expansion of the sports landscape, but a major reshaping of the betting and commercial ecosystem. It combines a huge audience base, deep cultural identification, and a mature event system to form a rapidly growing, very low-risk market. For betting operators, brands, and league partners, missing out on Indian women's cricket means missing out on one of the most explosive profit engines in the coming years.
