Big Bash sending the right messages but does the ECB have the ingredients
As the ECB aims to learn the right tricks from the Big Bash, Will Macpherson highlights the tournament’s key selling points
The ECB were out at the BBL last week – observing and trying to pick up tips – as our own big T20 competition (let’s not call it franchised, or even city-based, because who knows what it will look like) moves a step closer. They came last year too, focusing on marketing, but this delegation – it’s always a delegation – had greater manpower, and clearer aims.
It was headed up by Mike Fordham, the head of commercial partnerships, and he was joined by chief operating officer Gordon Hollins, and a pair of county cricket chief executives (a have and a havenot, if you like): Nottinghamshire’s Lisa Pursehouse and Somerset’s Guy Lavender. David Leatherdale, the itinerant chief executive of the PCA, was also in Australia, while other interesting figures – such as Yorkshire director of cricket Martyn Moxon, have checked out how the BBL works over the course of the competition. The English are not the only ones turning south for advice and ideas – their trip crossed over with that of Damien O’Donohoe, who heads up the Caribbean Premier League.
The ECB group were in Australia on behalf of the ‘T20 working group’ – which was established in December and hopes to have developed a workable tournament model by the time the county chief executives and chairmen get together at the end of March. From there, it’s expected to be full steam ahead to 2020, when the new Twenty20 tournament begins.
Anthony Everard, the Big Bash’s boss, told me last week that “they asked all the right questions” when he and his team met with the delegation. Which is good news, because there are a lot of questions to ask, and not all of them are relevant. The BBL is an excellent competition that is doing its job perfectly, attracting new fans and serving up tense, close (if not always spectacularly high-quality) cricket.
But not everything Cricket Australia have done to make it so successful has relevance in England. After all, as we know, Australia is not England. The weather is better, which prevents delays (two overs have been lost to rain in 29 games so far this BBL) and cooks good pitches. The Christmas holidays are in summer, meaning people have time off work and kids are not in school. Australia started with six teams and not 18, meaning a move to eight teams meant growth, not contraction. The ECB know that they cannot just implement the BBL model, as much as they would maybe like to.
They are not set to file a formal report on their finding – so what should the ECB take away from the BBL, then?
The influence of a free broadcast on the BBL is blindingly obvious in its rise. Anyone can watch the competition, and many people do: this season on Channel Ten it is raking in about 30 per cent of the audience and is number one in its timeslot, with more than a million sets of eyes on it each time. That’s a big footprint, as the corporate people say. There is a price to pay for free-to-air coverage – relentless ad
breaks and everything being sponsored, like the Bunnings Warehouse Replay, Harvey Norman Hawkeye and Zooper Dooper wickets – but it seems worth it for the exposure the competition gets. Ten have put together a slick team of ex-pros who balance the ‘banter’ required for a new audience with proper cricket chat better than their rivals do.
Then there’s the ticket prices: $20 for adults (about £12 right now), $5 for kids, and $42 for a family of four, with the promise that this won’t rise until grounds are all sold out. Which is not far off: this season, Brisbane Heat, Sydney Thunder and Perth Scorchers have sold every ticket to each of their four home games. Heat had never sold a single game out before this season. Hobart Hurricanes fell 250 tickets short. Average attendance is sitting over 30,000 and even unattractive looking dates have sold well: the MCG had crowds of 40,000 on consecutive Tuesdays recently, after people had gone back to work.
It’s no accident that people are able to make it to these games, either. The schedule has been optimised through trial and error. It begins on the first night of the school holidays and ends the weekend before the kids go back. The most accessible dates were identified, and the big games matched with them: the Melbourne derbies on the first two Saturdays of January, Adelaide Oval rakes in crowds on New Year’s Eve, and the Sydney teams open the competition. It all fits like a glove and, weirdly, for a competition just six years old, traditions are being forged.
The trick, too, is to leave fans wanting more. Four home games each, and just 35 overall (the T20 Blast has 14 games per team and a whopping 133 in total), makes it simple to follow and understand. Blink and you’ll miss it is better than outstaying its welcome.
Then there is the understanding that all of this is connected. Free-toair TV means no one misses the competition. Those new fans watching are able to go because of the cheap tickets and the well-scheduled fixtures. A short competition not only leaves them wanting more, but means every game matters massively, making a tight finish to the pool stages – and thus more teams with something to play for deep into the competition – more likely.
This year it took 27 of the 32 pool stage games for a team to be knocked out, and 28 for one to qualify for the last four. There will not be a single dead rubber.
And in terms of tapping its target market (kids and families), it’s working. A vast proportion of the fans are at their first cricket match (more than 20% last year), and 40% of attendees are female, and a similar number are kids. That the ECB needs to do something in this regard is undeniable: at the Blast last year, the average age of fans was between 48 and 49 years old, while just 13% were under 16.
Let’s just hope the delegation picked up the right tricks...