It’s a big month for my cricket-mad family. This year’s edition of The Hundred, the new 100-ball cricket tournament in England and Wales, is almost underway.
The next big date in our diary is March 23, the day of the Draft - an American sport-style process whereby teams bid for the very best professional players to join them. It’s a must-watch in our house. It’s even listed on the calendar.
My kids have their favourite players already. We’ve been down to the Ageas Bowl in Southampton to see our adopted team, the Southern Brave, several times. My daughter has become a fan of young English talent Maia Bouchier, who anchors the side’s middle batting order with her aggressive style. My son – a keeper batter himself – loves watching the Brave’s South African star Quentin de Kock.
According to Ben Wickham, the director of creative output at Sky Sports, younger viewers often focus more on individual athletes and their stories, as well as the competition as a whole, wins and losses. And so ensuring narratives are covered helps attract younger fans to the game.
“Components of The Hundred like the Draft really work well to build the individual stories of athletes and the teams concurrently,” he said. “Different components of the tournament appeal to different parts of our audience.”
Most pop songs nowadays are built to win listeners within ten seconds, and Ben’s team must do the same. But building several different angles into a story is challenging when you have seconds not minutes to try to convince people to give a new event like The Hundred a watch. Wickham added: “We can’t assume that people will care - we have to tell the story first. But you haven’t got long to hook people.’’
A live programme director must be aware of the context of the story that’s unfolding in front of them, and how to make the most of that narrative, whether that’s with adding a layer of data or a well-timed replay.
“The most incredible leg in darts history at the recent World Championships was just 62 seconds from start to finish,” Wickham said. “The director knew exactly what to do while it was unfolding in the moment. That piece has now been seen by tens of millions of people.”
There’s also a real balance to strike, too – for every person who wants to hear a piece of expert analysis, many just want to put their feet up and watch the action unfold. This is where digital platforms and social media can work harder for the more discerning viewer.
“They help us tell a wider story which might be more discursive and detailed, whereas when we focus on the main action on the broadcast,” Wickham explained. “That also happens with something like the General Election in news, too.’’ Even then, there’s a point where the analysis has to stop, because allowing audiences to witness events play out uninterrupted is also crucial. Sometimes, sport just needs to do its thing.
Pay TV is, of course, a major expense at a time when money is tight. Sport in general and products like The Hundred are apparently pulling their weight, which is a sign of the progress in attracting new fans games such as cricket.
One of the great opportunities of this digital era is that sport can be more things to more people. Cricket can tell both the Maia Bouchier and Quentin de Kock stories concurrently, the Women’s Ashes and the Men’s Hundred similarly. It is about celebrating legacy traditions alongside modernisation - really, entertainment is key.
