Barbados Bagged Lion's Share of World Cup 2007 Fans

 Barbados— Barbados bagged over a quarter of the fans who attended matches during the entire Cricket World Cup 2007. This was revealed by Minister of Tourism Noel Lynch Saturday at a Press conference held at Sherbourne Conference Centre to discuss the impact of the CWC 2007. According to Lynch, just over 400,000 fans passed through the gates during the course of the tournament which was held in nine different Caribbean nations and of those, 117,000 attended matches held in Barbados. Minister of Sport Anthony Wood said while the early exits of the Indian and Pakistani teams “sent shockwaves through Barbadians”, the island was still “able to generate up to 90 per cent of anticipated gate receipts.”

Commenting that Barbadians were known to “perform better when our backs are to the wall”, Wood stated that in the end, matches held in Barbados averaged spectator attendance of 17,000 per game. In addition to the thousands of fans who were physically in Barbados for the games, millions more tuned in via television. According to Lynch, the England versus West Indies Super 8 match held in Barbados, drew the highest viewership for any cricket event ever broadcast in Britain. This was despite the fact that the match was essentially a ‘dead rubber’ as neither country had any chance of advancing. However, the record viewership was drawn by the fact that it was the last international match ever for star batsman Brian Lara. (Sunday Sun)