Crowds have been barely down on final yr, however broadcast viewing figures barely up. Operational change has been important, and new buyers will perceive the product higher subsequent summer season. Demographic knowledge was declared to be “excellent”, with 22% of tickets offered to under-16s. The long-term plan to show a start-up league into an “unmissable occasion of the summer season” stays in movement.
The Hundred is six seasons outdated but nonetheless continually justifying its personal existence, the cricket itself battling to remain afloat in a deluge of KPIs and metrics. Richard Gould, the ECB’s chief government, and event managing director Vikram Banerjee spent Friday morning explaining why the 2026 version had been a hit; in politics, they are saying that in case you’re explaining, you are shedding.
Ask a tennis fan about this summer season’s Wimbledon, or a soccer fan concerning the final Premier League season, and they’ll consider it based mostly on the game itself: Carlos Alcaraz was a giant miss however Arthur Fery was a terrific story; the title race went deep into the season, and Spurs almost went down. No one will deliver up attendance statistics, or reference fan crowd demographics.
If the ECB’s management hoped that securing over £500 million of funding by means of promoting stakes in franchises would finish a decade of debate across the goal of a city-based, short-format event in England and Wales, they have been unsuitable. To many, the Hundred continues to be honest sport, and each unwell of the game might be pinned on the four-week event they despise.
It would by no means be universally favored, not least due to its wider affect on the English season. Gould revealed earlier this yr that ECB knowledge reveals Check cricket stays “the preferred format, regardless of age” within the UK, however the Hundred’s month-long, mid-summer window in England’s worldwide schedule implies that the 2 won’t ever once more run in parallel.
However there’s nothing to be gained from combating the identical battles each single yr, as if the Hundred is apologising for itself. The true mark of success would be the season when the event’s window is dominated by dialogue of the particular cricket reasonably than all the things occurring round it.
The Hundred’s fixed sense of self-validation has not been helped by the timing of its privatisation, which has led to 3 transitional seasons in a row: 2024 was the store window, 2025 was the holding yr whereas the ink dried on new contracts, and 2026 was the primary glimpse of the long run. At some stage, this event wants to start out really believing in itself.
It might be simple to dismiss the views of three gamers getting paid handsomely for 4 weeks’ work, however they’re proper that the cricket itself has been wonderful. The boys’s event noticed a leap in scoring charges regardless of a number of groups fielding international-quality bowling assaults, and the addition of a fourth abroad participant per crew has clearly raised the usual.
Early within the event, Duckett famous his shock on the dip in crowds given the standard of the on-field product, and there’s clearly work to do at some venues. There have been notable dips in each Leeds and Southampton – two venues the place the house crew rebranded considerably – although an uptick in Cardiff, the place the Hundred has been a hit.
Buttler pressured that the Hundred is “nonetheless younger” at solely six seasons outdated, and he has some extent. The IPL took a number of years to evolve from mild leisure – usually pitched as ‘Bollywood meets cricket’ – into what it’s right this moment, thanks partially to the technology of younger followers who grew up with it and take their affinity to their franchise significantly.
Nevertheless it was much more established by 2013 than the Hundred is now, helped partially by its apparent predominance because the world’s finest and richest league, but additionally by an absence of fixed comparability to what got here earlier than. Indian home cricket was unloved and unnoticed earlier than the IPL; in England, county cricket lovers have by no means forgiven the Hundred for bulldozing the schedule.
“When the product is so good on the sector – which it looks like it’s, as a participant – I am certain across the nation, the curiosity is there and [fans] love seeing nice gamers on present,” Buttler stated. “I do know enjoying at dwelling in Manchester, we have completely cherished it and been nicely supported, and we hope in some unspecified time in the future [in the future], each sport’s a sell-out.”
Subsequent summer season is an actual alternative for the Hundred to fly: it can begin instantly after the Ashes, when cricket’s profile is at its highest, new homeowners may have time to rectify any errors from this yr, crew manufacturers shall be extra acquainted, and squad churn shall be a lot decrease, with franchises anticipated to have the ability to retain as much as 16 gamers from their 2026 squads.
Matt Curler is a senior correspondent at Cricinfo. @mroller98
