Crowds were slightly down on last year, but broadcast viewing figures slightly up. Operational change has been significant, and new investors will understand the product better next summer. Demographic data was declared to be "outstanding", with 22% of tickets sold to under-16s. The long-term plan to turn a start-up league into an "unmissable event of the summer" remains in motion.
The Hundred is six seasons old yet still constantly justifying its own existence, the cricket itself battling to stay afloat in a deluge of KPIs and metrics. Richard Gould, the ECB's chief executive, and tournament managing director Vikram Banerjee spent Friday morning explaining why the 2026 edition had been a success; in politics, they say that if you're explaining, you're losing.
Ask a tennis fan about this summer's Wimbledon, or a football fan about the last Premier League season, and they will evaluate it based on the sport itself: Carlos Alcaraz was a big miss but Arthur Fery was a great story; the title race went deep into the season, and Spurs nearly went down. Nobody will bring up attendance statistics, or reference fan crowd demographics.
If the ECB's leadership hoped that securing over £500 million of investment through selling stakes in franchises would end a decade of debate around the purpose of a city-based, short-format tournament in England and Wales, they were wrong. To many, the Hundred is still fair game, and every ill of the sport can be pinned on the four-week tournament they despise.
It will never be universally liked, not least because of its wider impact on the English season. Gould revealed earlier this year that ECB data shows Test cricket remains "the most popular format, irrespective of age" in the UK, but the Hundred's month-long, mid-summer window in England's international schedule means that the two will never again run in parallel.
But there is nothing to be gained from fighting the same battles every single year, as though the Hundred is apologising for itself. The true mark of success will be the season when the tournament's window is dominated by discussion of the actual cricket rather than everything going on around it.
The Hundred's constant sense of self-validation has not been helped by the timing of its privatisation, which has led to three transitional seasons in a row: 2024 was the shop window, 2025 was the holding year while the ink dried on new contracts, and 2026 was the first glimpse of the future. At some stage, this tournament needs to start actually believing in itself.
The players clearly do: Jos Buttler said after captaining Manchester Super Giants to the men's title that it felt "bigger and better" this year, and described the quality of cricket as "incredible". Dani Gibson said that the standard was "fantastic" even in a relatively poor year for the women's Hundred, while Sam Billings said there was "no doubt" that it was "second to the IPL only".
It would be easy to dismiss the views of three players getting paid handsomely for four weeks' work, but they are right that the cricket itself has been excellent. The men's tournament saw a jump in scoring rates despite several teams fielding international-quality bowling attacks, and the addition of a fourth overseas player per team has clearly raised the standard.
The question is whether anyone is really paying attention to that. The Hundred generates limited interest from British newspapers, and much of its television coverage - particularly on the BBC - seems determined to focus on cricket as little as possible: Ben Duckett misfielded in Sunday's final while he was being asked, via the player microphone, which football team he supports.
Early in the tournament, Duckett noted his surprise at the dip in crowds given the quality of the on-field product, and there is clearly work to do at some venues. There were notable dips in both Leeds and Southampton - two venues where the home team rebranded significantly - though an uptick in Cardiff, where the Hundred has been a success.
Buttler stressed that the Hundred is "still young" at only six seasons old, and he has a point. The IPL took several years to evolve from light entertainment - often pitched as 'Bollywood meets cricket' - into what it is today, thanks in part to the generation of young fans who grew up with it and take their affinity to their franchise seriously.
But it was far more established by 2013 than the Hundred is now, helped in part by its obvious predominance as the world's best and richest league, but also by a lack of constant comparison to what came before. Indian domestic cricket was unloved and unnoticed before the IPL; in England, county cricket lovers have never forgiven the Hundred for bulldozing the schedule.
"When the product is so good on the field - which it feels like it is, as a player - I'm sure around the country, the interest is there and [fans] love seeing great players on show," Buttler said. "I know playing at home in Manchester, we've absolutely loved it and been well supported, and we hope at some point [in the future], every game's a sell-out."
Next summer is a real opportunity for the Hundred to fly: it will start immediately after the Ashes, when cricket's profile is at its highest, new owners will have time to rectify any mistakes from this year, team brands will be more familiar, and squad churn will be much lower, with franchises expected to be able to retain up to 16 players from their 2026 squads.
Sunday's finals day at Lord's was a success: the women's was incredibly one-sided as Sunrisers Leeds misfired, but the men's was a gripping game between two outstanding sides, watched by a family-dominated crowd of 27,416 at Lord's and shown live on free-to-air TV in the UK. The product works: now is the time to let it speak for itself.