Cricketing innovations bowling women over 29 Apr 2010

Recent innovations in cricket such as the Twenty20 format have created a broad based appeal for the sport. It has caught the imagination of young, women and old alike. This is the result of the Sponsoring 21+ study conducted by SPORT+MARKT in the four key cricket markets of India, United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia.

It is evident that cricket is beginning to draw a much younger and wider demographic base on TV. “Cricket is finally attracting the attention of non-traditional cricket audiences - the more hard to reach demographic groups of women and youth”, states Ravi Chavan, Cricket Expert SPORT+MARKT. There has been a significant increase in women following cricket on TV in the United Kingdom (+ 12%) and South Africa (+ 6%) between 2008 and 2009 (see Graph 2). Similarly, during the same period cricket has also experienced an increase amongst the target audience of 16-29 year olds in countries such as Australia (+ 5%) and South Africa (+ 4%), whereas there was a marginal decrease of one percentage point in India and the United Kingdom (see Graph 3). However, given the fact that there has been an overall increase in following of cricket on TV in India (+ 5 %) and the United Kingdom (+ 1 %) as illustrated in Graph-1, the total number of 16-29 year olds following cricket on TV has nevertheless increased in 2009 as compared to 2008. This trend is further expected to continue, as the Twenty20 cricket format matures and attracts greater number of viewers. “Twenty20 format primarily designed for television and with its high octane contests appeals to women and young people, whose attention is much craved by sponsors and advertisers alike”, underlines the SPORT+MARKT project manager.

Interesting to note is the considerable decline in the 30-44 years age category in all the countries. This can be partly attributed to the fact that this category represents the traditional cricketing audience, which are more inclined towards the longer version of the game. Also, they have a cynical view towards the new format. “The 30 to 44 year-olds more often consider Twenty20 to be similar to ‘Speed Dating’ as compared to the ‘True Romance’ offered by the Test or One-day international format”, says Chavan. On the other hand there has been a considerable increase in the 45 plus age category in all the countries. Nevertheless, Twenty20 cricket has managed to transform the face of cricket worldwide by simply innovating on the structure, construct and presentation of a nearly 5 century old sport in order to complement today's short attention spans and entertainment infrastructure.

This strategy seems to be effective and is working at least in the short-term, as evident in the results of this study. Ravi Chavan: “However, from a long term perspective the challenge for cricket’s governing bodies would be to sustain the spectator appeal of these valuable new found audiences, but more importantly to find a way to resurrect the declining interests in Test cricket”.

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