The Australian Cricket team wasn’t the only one celebrating a monumental 4-1 Ashes landslide. Kayo SPORTS recorded the highest average audience of any Test series on its platform, and across all Foxtel Group platforms.
This is a monumental feat when you take into consideration that only 18 of the possible 25 days were used. Meaning, Kayo lost seven days of viewership.
The series, which Australia won all test matches bar one, recorded 1.3 billion minutes streamed, making it the most streamed ever on Kayo, and across all Foxtel Group platforms. Audiences all around the nation were captivated by two blokes in particular—Aussie batsmen Travis Head and Aussie seamer Mitchell Starc.
Starc showed off his durability as a 35-year-old, taking 31 wickets across all five test matches, helping him sew up the player of the series. He joins some elite company in Shane Warne, Glen McGrath and Mitchell Johnson as the only bowlers to take over 30 wickets in a series this century.
His incredible bowling performance helped Kayo’s audiences soar 31 per cent compared to the Australia v India series in 2024/25. And compared to the last Ashes series on Australian soil in 2021/22, Kayo SPORTS audiences were also up 112 per cent.
On the batting front, it was all Head who had Kayo’s viewers on the edge of their seats. He blasted three spectacular centuries to bring his series total to 629 runs, making him the first Aussie batsmen to pass the 600 mark since his stand-in captain Steve Smith in 2019.
“It was an exhilarating series with twists that no one could have anticipated, and Australians turned to Fox Sports in record numbers to watch another chapter in one of the world’s greatest rivalries. The success of this series on our platforms reflects the deep connection audiences have with our coverage, alongside the strength of cricket across the country,” said FOX SPORTS managing director, Steve Crawley.
“Congratulations to the Fox Sports team, Cricket Australia, the England Cricket team and, of course, the Australian cricket team on an incredible series that gave us many moments to remember.”
FOX SPORTS coverage featured every Test live and in 4K Ultra HD, with no ad breaks during play and a commentary team led by Adam Gilchrist and including Kerry O’Keefe, Alyssa Healy, Brett Lee, David Warner, Brendon Julian, Michael Hussey, Isa Guha and Michael Vaughan.
Innovations this series included Fox Focus—next generation telestrator technology that provided real-time player and field tracking analysis and Fox Playbook—a tool that predicted player match-ups and ball-by-ball strategies.
Other highlights from the five-Test, five location series include: the Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth Tests recorded the top three highest average audiences ever for Tests on Kayo SPORTS and across Foxtel Group platforms; and The Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne Tests achieved the highest Test audiences ever for their locations on Kayo SPORTS, and across Foxtel Group platforms.
“We are all enormously proud of the efforts of the Australian team in retaining the Ashes with a dominant display,” said Todd Greenberg, Cricket Australia CEO.
“This yet again underlined the strength of our high-performance program including our coaches, selection panel and support staff.
“The enormous crowds and audiences for the series were beyond even our most optimistic forecasts and we’re delighted that so many Australians enjoyed the action in brilliant stadiums, on the couch or at the beach.
“This was the culmination of the fantastic performances of our players, the world class coverage provided by all our broadcast partners and the efforts of everyone at CA who continue to grow cricket audiences and participation.
“Cricket has truly been everywhere this summer, with the BBL also drawing huge audiences and the women’s multiformat series against India still to come, emphasising our place as Australia’s national sport.”
The 2025/26 Summer of Cricket continues with Fox Cricket on Kayo SPORTS and FOXTEL the only place to watch every match of the KFC Big Bash League.
