ESPN Sports: Celebs Find Cricket Score On ESPN Star Cricket Live Streaming

If you didn’t buy the ICC World Cup 2011 package for $129 from Willow TV, then you can also turn to ESPN Sports for live streaming of the Cricket World Cup games, plus Cricket live scores, highlights, and schedule for the World Cup.

Since celebrities are so familiar with ESPN, it is highly likely that they are using ESPN Star Cricket live streaming to watch India vs. Australia online today, and to keep up with what is going on during the Cricket World Cup 2011. The India vs. Australia game is the 2nd quarter final match up.

Celebs who love Cricket come from all countries and include Russell Crowe, Daniel Radcliffe, Prince William, Prince Harry, Mick Jagger, and Hugh Grant.

What other celebs do you think may be logging on to ESPN Star Sports Live Cricket today to watch Ind. vs. Aus?

ICC Cricket World Cup loses to IPL in TV viewership

The 10th edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup kicked off with a bang, with the opening match between India and Bangladesh drawing nearly 39 million viewers across the country yesterday. But, the figures are about 80 per cent less in some cases, when compared with the opening match of Indian Premier League-3.

Official broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) saw 18.8 million viewers tuning in across its three channels, ESPN, STAR Cricket and STAR Sports. Another 20 million viewers watched the match live on Doordarshan, the public sector broadcaster which is free to air.

According to data available with aMap, an overnight television audience measurement agency, ESS recorded ratings of 2.12 points in cable and satellite (C&S) homes across the country. The ratings recorded for the inaugural match of IPL-3 played between Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders, is 3.8 points.

IPL matches are, however, only available on SET Max (a pay channel), unlike the World Cup matches, some of which are being shown on DD.

From data for the six metros — Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad — the ratings peaked to 4 points for the World Cup match on Saturday.

The ratings are slightly lower than the peak ratings of 4.3 points recorded in the metros during the opening match of IPL-3.

Moreover, the number of viewers recorded is significantly higher than the viewership for the Commonwealth Games hosted in Delhi in October last year, when cumulative numbers for the event over the first three days had been 33 million. Even the response to the World Cup T20 held in West India in April-May 2010 had been lukewarm, hooking on a mere 5.1 million viewers on the opening day.

Viewership, however, remained strong across the country, with average time spent per viewer at a whopping 85 minutes. In metros, the time spent stood slightly higher, at 88 minutes.

As many as 49 matches are going to be played across India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the 10th edition of the World Cup, which has returned to the subcontinent after a gap of 15 years. Matches that kicked off on February 19 would end with the final on April 2.

TV ratings for ICC CWC break records

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 continues to touch new highs in viewership and ratings as quality encounters enthrall viewers across the country. By the end of the 10th match, the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 (including the opening ceremony and match telecast), has been sampled by a record 127 million individuals. This is 64% of the total C&S audience in the country as per the latest ratings issued by research agency TAM. The live matches alone have been watched by 115 million viewers (ESS bouquet + Doordarshan) and 106 million viewers on STAR Cricket and other ESS channels alone.

The first 10 matches have delivered a solid average of 3.1 TVR which is a significant jump from the previous edition in 2007. Match 10 between Pakistan and Sri Lanka has rated highest amongst all non-India matches with a rating of 4.6, followed by 2.5 in the Netherlands vs. England game.

The live streaming on www.espnstar.com/cwclive has been a huge hit. The website has served 6.9 million video streams till March 01, 2011. The epic India- England encounter played on a Sunday drew as many as 1.45 million video streams. Over 5 million Unique Visitors have enjoyed fantastic ICC Cricket World Cup Matches online with ESPN STAR.

Commenting on the ratings, Sanjay Kailash, Executive Vice President – Ad Sales & New Media, ESPN Software India Pvt. Ltd, said, “The ratings for the non-India matches are very healthy and point towards increasing viewer interest in the tournament as a whole. Credit must also be given to the teams who are dishing out such exciting fare and our advertisers are lapping it up. We expect the trend to continue as the tournament progresses towards the second phase as teams get into top gear to qualify for the knock-out stages."

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 Opening Ceremony live on STAR Cricket

The cricket extravaganza is just waiting to knock the door and its just few steps away. ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 will start on 19th January 2011.

But before that, awaits a cultural extravaganza that will be organized in Bangladesh and its ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 Opening Ceremony.

The opening Ceremony will go live on 17th of February and this will be full of cultural programmes with all players attending the ceremony.

This event telecast will go live on STAR Cricket from evening 5:30 PM local time India and you can watch the highlights of it on next day.

This extravaganza night is of duration of total 4 hours which will feature many performances from Bangladesh, India and few from other countries.