Dubai [UAE], March 21 (ANI): The ICC Men's Champions Trophy 2025 has broken major viewership records in India as its TV ratings surged to the highest ever for a multi-nation cricket tournament, eclipsing the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 by a whopping 23 per cent.

The live broadcast of the event received an astounding total watch time of 137 billion minutes on Star Sports and 110 billion minutes on JioHotstar. The enormous numbers were a result of a blockbuster final between India and New Zealand in Dubai on March 9 that touched a peak concurrency of 122 million live viewers on TV and 61 million on JioHotstar, a record for Digital viewership in cricket, a International Cricket Council (ICC) release said.

The final also became the second-highest-rated ODI in TV history (outside of ICC Cricket World Cup matches) with 230 million viewers tuning in for the live broadcast with 53 billion minutes of watch-time across TV & Digital platforms.

'The Champions Trophy made an amazing return after eight years and the viewership numbers from India have been overwhelming, in particular the final between India and New Zealand,' ICC Chair, Jay Shah said, according to ICC.

'The incredible viewership numbers highlight the mass appeal that cricket has in India and how taking ICC events to audiences in different languages can significantly boost fan engagement. The success of the Champions Trophy marketing strategy is evident, creating excitement in existing and new fanbases, complimented by highly exciting cricket throughout the event,' he added.

CEO Sports, Jio Star, Sanjog Gupta: 'This accomplishment is a result of the combined strength of the widest, most deeply penetrated multi-platform destination for sports, the fan-focussed story-telling approach of the JioStar 'mega-casts' and our superior technological capabilities.'

'The interest in the tournament was fuelled by a one-of-a-kind cohort-based marketing effort which built diverse apertures for the tournament in order to recruit at scale, differentiated audience segments with distinct persuasions across devices. India's unbeaten, title-winning campaign, further fuelled the passion of the fans and drove the spike in viewership for the Final.'

The high-profile league encounter between archrivals India and Pakistan became one of the most watched ODI matches ever in India, clocking over 26 billion minutes of watch-time on linear TV as per figures released by the Broadcast Audience Research Council.

The chartbuster achieved an impressive 10.8 per cent higher television rating than the India-Pakistan match in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 played in Ahmedabad that had registered 19.5 billion linear viewing minutes compared to 26.5 billion minutes in the Champions Trophy match.

The match, played to a packed house in Dubai on February 23, was witnessed by a record 206 million people on linear TV as India continued their dominance over Pakistan in global ICC events with superstar Virat Kohli carving a memorable six-wicket win for the eventual champions.

The remarkable viewership numbers are largely because rights holders JioStar had ensured wide coverage with channels taking the action live to homes across the country in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada on Star Sports and Sports 18 channels, the release said.

On digital channels, the tournament was streamed live across a record 16 feeds including nine languages - English, Hindi, Marathi, Haryanvi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, four multi-cam feeds, Indian Sign Language feed and the Max View feed on JioHotstar.

Fans and viewers were deeply engaged with the high-stakes tournament through captivating programming in the lead-up and through the tournament. (ANI)