Cricket World Cup embarrassment: England v New Zealand in an empty 134,000-seat stadium

The Narendra Modi Stadium was virtually empty during the opening of the Cricket World Cup. Photo: Matthew Lewis/ICC

The Cricket World Cup got off to an awkward start for organizers on Thursday with many empty seats at the opening tournament between England and New Zealand.

A shockingly poor crowd packed into the capacity Narendra Modi Stadium 134,000 people to watch the first ball of the tournament. , delivered by Trent Boult to Jonny Bairstow.

The location and dates of World Cup matches have changed several times, leaving local residents, not to mention traveling fans, unable to plan ahead.

Notably, World Cup tickets only went on sale on August 25 – 41 days before the opening match. Even then, they were often difficult to access due to reports of glitches on the ticketing site. In 2019, ahead of the last ODI World Cup in England, tickets went on sale a year before the opening game.

There have been few attempts to make up for such administrative chaos in recent weeks. On the roads of Ahmedabad, the absence of advertisements for the World Cup is striking. Locals point out that IPL matches are much more advertised, perhaps because they are run by private commercial franchises, while the World Cup is run by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Whenever there are empty seats, ticket prices are raised as an explanation. They are a big reason for the unwelcome spectacle in Ahmedabad — and with poor sales evident since a few days, more innovative thinking would have given schoolchildren thousands of free tickets. However, ticket prices starting at 1,000 rupees (£9.90) are not outrageous. Indeed, expect several thousand fans to work a full day, avoiding the midday heat and arriving at the game later.

Only a handful of fans showed up. Photo: Sam Panthaki/AFP

There is a deeper economic explanation for so many empty spaces. Attracting more fans to games is nothing more than a rounding error in the BCCI's financial statements. Its wealth — whether from the IPL, domestic international competitions or hosting global events — stems overwhelmingly from the value of broadcasting rights.

The greatest irony, perhaps, is that broadcasters pay for the spectacle that fans create. With international cricket's primacy under threat, hordes of empty seats in the coming weeks threaten to undermine broadcaster payouts for all boards, including the BCCI, in the future.

IPL dominance puts World Cup in shadow

'Indians don't like cricket,' a senior Indian broadcasting figure told me a few years ago. “Indians love Indian cricket.”

This observation helps explain why the public is so amazingly poor.

Watching players of the stature of Trent Boult or Jonny Bairstow was once a rare treat: they would only come to India, or any other Test-playing nation, for the tour every four years or so. No more.

The new dynamic of global Twenty20 leagues means fans can now see the world's best players much more frequently. Especially if you are Indian: The Indian Premier League is cricket's version of the Premier League or National Basketball Association, a national domestic league that is actually a global tournament that brings back the world's best talent year after year.

For most local fans in Ahmedabad, seeing the best talent from England or New Zealand at the World Cup is simply less exciting than seeing them play for or against the Gujarat Titans in the IPL. And those with designs on World Cup tickets are hoping for bigger prizes: India vs Pakistan at the Narendra Modi Stadium every week on Saturday — when the stadium can sell out several times — or the World Cup final here.

Last year in Australia at the T20 World Cup, the start of the competition was much less attractive, with Sri Lanka playing Namibia in the first round. And yet a crowd of 15,000 watched. Not only did this demonstrate the importance of early ticket sales for the games (they were on sale for nine months), but it also justified the need to bring the game to Geelong; The city has a significant population of Sri Lankan origin. A similar strategy could be used to promote neutral games for the World Cup, such as hosting England matches in Jaipur, where Jos Buttler is celebrated for his deeds for the Rajasthan Royals.

To overcome the potential of the apathy of a nation teeming with elite cricket, the BCCI needed to encourage people to come to games where they would be neutral fans. Instead, it seems that they treat them with contempt.