Soaring heat, falling crowds - The Hundred's peculiar summer

As is now tradition, The Hundred reaches its conclusion just as the new football season starts and exhausted parents try to tough out the end of the summer holidays.

For cricket fans, journalists and pundits, this is also peak time for the eternal debate that rumbles on about the future of The Hundred, its relevancies, and its success.

The key difference this season was that it was the first since the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) sold stakes of all eight teams to various private owners, which generated a staggering £975m.

But in a summer of soaring temperatures, The Hundred's crowds have stagnated.

The ECB confirmed on Friday that ticket sales had dropped just over 5% from last year, down to 550,000 from 580,000.

It also said it had predicted the inconsistency because of the scale of change, and that the two most successful years in terms of sales (2023 and 2025) coincided with an Ashes series and an India men's tour.

Despite the overall drop, the demographics remained on par with last year in terms of the tournament's target family audience, with 22% of tickets sold to juniors, 40% to families and 28% to female attendees.

The messaging has remained understandably positive and confident about the product despite this dip in crowds.