ICC expands cricket push in China
The International Cricket Council is making China a centerpiece of its next growth phase because the sport’s long-term value depends on expanding well beyond its South Asian heartland.
That matters because cricket already counts more than a billion fans, but roughly 90% of them are concentrated in South Asia. For the ICC, adding millions of new followers in a country of 1.4 billion people could reshape the economics of the sport — from media rights and sponsorships to Olympic relevance and commercial partnerships. In investor terms, this is the kind of slow-burn, category-expanding strategy that can create durable value if it succeeds.
China is attractive for reasons that go beyond population size. The ICC says the country has become a focus market after cricket’s appearance at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou and the progress of China’s women’s team, which has climbed 10 places in the world rankings over the past two years. Even so, the gap remains large: China’s women are still only 36th in T20 rankings, while the men sit 92nd.
The ICC has already put money behind the effort, spending $1.5 million in China over the past five years to develop the sport. That has helped deliver a modest but meaningful infrastructure base, including three top-level cricket venues and a new 1,500-seat stadium in Taicang that is expected to host domestic and international matches and serve as a training base. The organization is also testing whether Chinese audiences will actually engage, with some women’s T20 World Cup matches broadcast in Mandarin and the final week of the 2026 men’s T20 World Cup drawing 4.4 million video views in China.
For long-term investors, the real story is not a quick commercial windfall. It is the compounding effect of new markets, new fans and new formats. Cricket’s return to the Olympics at the 2028 Los Angeles Games should give the sport another global stage, and the ICC’s push into China and Indonesia is aimed at converting one-off exposure into lasting participation. Indonesia, with its 280 million people, is another potentially important prize.
There are still obvious risks. Cricket remains deeply rooted in South Asia, England and Australia, and China’s national teams are still far from competitive on the world stage. Thursday’s rainout in the Asian Games was a reminder that momentum in a new market can be fragile. But the broader direction is clear: if even a slice of China’s population starts watching, playing and spending on cricket, the sport’s commercial ceiling rises.
That makes the ICC’s China strategy worth watching over the next several years, especially as the Los Angeles Olympics and more women’s cricket tours help build awareness. For investors looking at the broader sports ecosystem, the lesson is familiar: the biggest opportunities often come from patient expansion into places where the audience is still being built.
| Entity | Gains | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| ICC | ▲New fans and media reach | ▼Near-term commercialization costs |
| China’s cricket programs | ▲More funding and visibility | ▼Pressure to improve results |
| South Asian strongholds | ▲A bigger global game | ▼Relative share of attention |
| Rival sports/entertainment | ▲— | ▼Potential audience competition |