How county cricket is fighting back by embracing live streaming | City A.M.
Depending on who you listen to, county cricket is either in bloom or wilting on the vine.
Its flagship event, at least in theory, is the County Championship – a venerable 128-year-old competition which sees 18 counties play four-day matches throughout the summer. It has taken some flak in recent years – and not just from the usual places where opinions tend to emerge.
Colin Graves, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, and Tom Harrison, its chief executive, have led a concerted effort to broaden the domestic game’s appeal. But in trying to court the much-coveted new generation of fans, they have also undermined the current offering.
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While introducing The Hundred – a new short format, city-based tournament for 2020 – Graves’s implications were clear.
“The younger generation, whether you like it or not, are just not attracted to cricket,” he said in May. “If other formats were attracting that audience, we wouldn’t have this issue. We have to try to attract the audience we haven’t got.”
The County Championship has been pigeonholed into a reductive stereotype: elderly men sat in empty stands half-watching some ponderous action in between considering clues from the crossword and taking sips from a Thermos.
County cricket is trying to shake off its reductive stereotype (Source: Getty)
“Cricket has always evolved and changed when it’s needed to and it’s proved itself to be incredibly adaptable,” Harrison said in March 2017 when putting forward a new Twenty20 competition.
The subject may have been different, but the sentence is equally relevant when considering what counties are doing now.
With reports of its demise premature, county cricket is fighting back.
One way the game is trying to show that it’s still alive and kicking is by embracing the digital world. If branching out, appealing to new supporters and widening engagement is the primary concern of the ECB top brass, then they should be applauding the work being done currently.
It has been gradual progress, but driven by better technology, social media and a passionate fan base, county cricket is booming.
Live streaming is a clear growth area. With the ECB upgrading club analysts’ cameras and broadcast rights-holder Sky loosening their grip to first allow clubs to produce highlights and then stream online from two fixed-position cameras, counties are attracting new eyes and ears to their matches.
Somerset are providing a service to fans who can’t attend their Taunton home ground (Source: Getty)
Somerset are just one of many clubs reaping the rewards from such a progressive stance. This season more than 150,000 viewers have enjoyed 85,000 hours of action online, while 8.6m people have engaged with video on the club’s social media channels.
“What streaming has done is changed that perception that County Championship cricket is a dull experience which no one cares about or attends,” says Ben Warren, Somerset’s digital marketing and communications executive.
“It’s clear there’s a massive interest – we’ve had just as many people watch County Championship games as 50-over games as T20 games. Our aim is to banish that perception that it’s a dying breed which no one cares about, because that’s just not the case.”
Last month the bar was raised in what counties can offer, as Sky waived their broadcast rights and the ECB gave the go-ahead for a one-off experiment.
Yorkshire’s County Championship match against Surrey at Scarborough was live-streamed using four cameras – two moving, two fixed – to offer a closer look to viewers, while commentary was provided by the visitors.
The man behind the cameras, Surrey’s head of communications Jon Surtees, says it was a roaring success, with 15,000 people per day tuning in and over 1m minutes of coverage enjoyed.
“County cricket is really popular,” he says. “But it’s difficult to watch, because by its nature it’s sometimes played at a time when people can’t come to the ground. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to deepen their involvement in county cricket.”
Could this be the future of county cricket? Both Warren and Surtees are hopeful, but there are stumbling blocks.
Sky Sports own all the broadcast rights to domestic cricket (Source: Getty)
“It’s a very delicate balance,” explains Warren. “We need to make sure everybody is happy: the ECB, the broadcaster and ourselves.”
“It would be very much down to the ECB and Sky,” adds Surtees. “But we’ve proven that it’s doable.”
If the ECB is serious about attracting a new audience they should be firmly on board with the progression of live streaming.
However, the issue may rest with Sky, which holds the broadcast rights for all matches under the ECB’s auspices. Growing the game is a noble ambition, but Sky might be wary of furthering what could be seen as a competitor.
“It could be the start of a digital revolution for county cricket and the rest of the sports broadcast industry,” says Jim O’Neill from video analytics company Ooyala.
“If local teams are capable of building a digital audience, that will take the power away from the likes of the ECB and back to the fans which, in the long term, might mean yet more competition for big broadcasters.”
With county cricket it seems the question is not one of appetite, but whether it can be met.