Artificial intelligence could help cricket reach new audiences and broaden its 2bn commercial market, according to Anish Shivdasani, head of digital assets at consultancy Roland Berger, in a recent interview. He sees personalized content, multilingual explanations and interactive sponsorship as ways to build revenue beyond broadcast rights.

Cricket’s commercial income remains concentrated in media rights and India, Shivdasani said. He cited approximately $2bn in annual cricket-related brand spending in India, which he said accounts for most of the sport’s global revenue. European club football, by comparison, generates more than $46bn, highlighting a gap in monetization rather than fan interest, he argued.

“Cricket went from a sport you watched on television to one you follow on your phone,” Shivdasani said, describing a change that brings every ball, statistic and clip to fans in real time. He said audiences now expect to interact with the sport as they follow it.

Personalization Could Expand Cricket’s 2bn Commercial Market

Shivdasani said AI may help rights holders develop personalized digital content, licensed AI personalities, interactive sponsorships and direct-to-fan subscriptions. These offerings could give cricket boards more direct relationships with audiences and access to first-party fan data that broadcasters have historically held.

That opportunity would build on broadcasting rather than replace it immediately. Shivdasani said personalized experiences will not replace broadcast rights within the decade, but could change their value. In his view, rights holders that own fan relationships and the data behind them may command a premium.

The potential for digital tools to support major sports events also appears in coverage of FIFA’s technology push. Cricket’s opportunity, Shivdasani said, is to make a complex game easier to follow while creating more ways for audiences to engage.

AI Could Make Cricket Easier to Follow

The International Cricket Council has already used AI to answer questions through its ICC Insights platform. Shivdasani cited more than 400,000 fan questions answered during the Men’s T20 World Cup. He said the second-largest query category concerned Associate Nations, suggesting interest beyond cricket’s traditional leading countries.

Personalized explanations could help newcomers understand rules and statistics such as net run rate, qualification scenarios and the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method. Shivdasani pointed to an AI avatar of Harsha Bhogle used during the T20 World Cup, which could pair live match data with a familiar commentary personality to explain tactics and match situations.

AI translation may also reduce the cost of producing commentary for different languages and markets, he said. Shivdasani named China, Indonesia and Germany as places where the sport lacks the established following it has in South Asia and other traditional markets. He predicted that some future fans may discover cricket through conversations with AI assistants.

Other sports are also testing connected experiences, including LaLiga’s connected-ball plans. Cricket’s wider commercial potential still depends on converting first-time interest into lasting engagement, Shivdasani said.

Shared Access Remains a Challenge

AI is also used by professional teams to analyze ball-by-ball statistics, video and biomechanics, Shivdasani said. The advantage, he argued, increasingly comes from how quickly teams can interpret and act on collected data. Wearables and performance monitoring may help identify injury risks for fast bowlers, while more sophisticated ball tracking could affect officiating.

Those tools could widen the gap between wealthy cricket boards and smaller organizations if access remains uneven. Shivdasani said shared data infrastructure across the game matters. That concern echoes wider questions about access to sports technology, including the path for concussion detection tools.

Over the next decade, Shivdasani expects fans to ask general-purpose AI systems for cricket updates instead of opening official apps. He said governing bodies that structure their data well could become authoritative sources for those systems. For cricket’s commercial partners, the next step is building direct, useful fan experiences while protecting the sport’s ability to explain itself accurately.