The Hundred crowd figures fell by just over 5% in 2026, dropping to 550,000 from 580,000 the previous year, the England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed on Friday, as the tournament’s sixth edition grappled with the fallout from sweeping rebrands and new private ownership across all eight teams.
The Hundred crowd figures and what is behind the drop
The ECB said it had anticipated some inconsistency, pointing to the scale of change across the competition this year. The board also noted that the two strongest years for ticket sales (2023 and 2025) coincided with an Ashes series and an India men’s tour respectively, offering a broader context for the decline.
Demographics held broadly steady. Of the 550,000 tickets sold, 22% went to juniors, 40% to families and 28% to female attendees, in line with the tournament’s target audience profile from last year.
ECB chief executive Richard Gould accepted that attendances need to improve, but said confidence in the tournament’s direction remains high. ‘It’ll take time because there are new brands, but there’s a lot more attachment that fans can now have with the teams because they’re owned by the clubs and the investors, rather than all being owned centrally by the ECB,’ Gould told BBC Sport.
‘We would like to see even more people coming to the grounds as attendances were more or less flat. It was a slower start and then built towards the end. The weather’s been perfect, but the economy’s not that great. When you look at the changes we’ve seen in terms of branding and team names, there was always going to be a bit of a reset moment. But I’ve got absolute confidence that we’re in a really strong position.’
Venue by venue: a mixed picture across the grounds
The pattern across individual grounds reflected the varying degree of upheaval at each team. Headingley and Old Trafford, where Northern Superchargers became Sunrisers Leeds and Manchester Originals became the Super Giants, both saw lower attendances. Southampton’s Utilita Bowl recovered from a slow start after Southern Brave traded their green and black for navy and red, though their first men’s fixture drew 8,452 compared with 12,549 for the equivalent game in 2025.
Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens told a different story. The smallest of the host grounds recorded crowds for both its men’s and women’s Welsh Fire teams, drawing 11,796 fans for their fixture against MI London, record figures for both sides. Timing contributed: Cardiff’s record crowd came on a Saturday night, while two of their women’s fixtures had midweek 11:30 BST starts.
The London derby between London Spirit and MI London drew 27,721, a record for any group stage match in the tournament’s history. However, without a London team in either the men’s or women’s Eliminator, The Oval was well short of a sellout on Friday, with 10,271 attending the women’s match and 20,124 the men’s.
Tournament director Vikram Banerjee told BBC Sport the 2026 edition has been a ‘better edition’ than last year and ‘one of the best’ in the competition’s history. ‘The quality now is second only to the IPL, by a clear distance in both the men’s and women’s games,’ Banerjee said. He added that crowd figures are just ‘one measure’, pointing instead to online audience growth and record-breaking engagement across The Hundred‘s own social media channels as signs of health.
The ownership shake-up, which generated £975m for the ECB when stakes in all eight teams were sold to private investors, has also shifted responsibility for marketing and ticket pricing away from the board. Prices have risen at some venues, reaching highs of £55 for some adult tickets at The Oval, though most grounds charged between £20 and £30 for advance purchases. The ECB retained control of one element: junior tickets remain capped at £5 across all grounds.
The men’s and women’s finals take place at Lord’s, with the ECB and the new owners watching closely to see whether the end of the competition can deliver the kind of crowds that have so far proved elusive in 2026.
