Growing a professional sport in the US is a massive undertaking: a multi-decade, multi-front effort.
Among many other tactics, it requires exposing the sport to potential new fans, and having a product compelling enough to convert them into regular ones.
Season 2 of Cognizant Major League Cricket (MLC), held this past July, provided such a product. It featured dozens of the world’s top stars – a collection of franchise talent many say is second only to the IPL – and an exciting level of play.
But having a great tournament is actually the easier half of the battle.
The bigger challenge is getting a potential audience – existing cricket fans and, more importantly, non-cricket fans – to notice what is going on to begin with.
Just getting to that starting point requires first winning an all-out war for consumer attention: against every other entrenched major professional sport and every form of passive video entertainment – from YouTube to social media platforms to streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.
With the dust now settling on MLC Season 2, it is becoming clear that the awareness initiative with arguably the highest impact this time around, and with even stronger potential for future seasons, was Willow by Cricbuzz’s local broadcast partnership strategy, spearheaded by COO Todd Myers.
Specifically, Willow partnered with Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) for each of the MLC teams to broadcast select free MLC matches, even though Willow itself is a subscription-based broadcaster.
Willow and the MLC
Willow by Cricbuzz (“Willow TV” or “Willow”), owned by Times Internet, is a pillar of US cricket. It is the official North American broadcaster for the ICC, virtually all major franchise tournaments, and many national boards. So it has a keen interest in growing cricket in the US.
Moreover, Willow was not only the official North American broadcaster of Major League Cricket’s Season 2, it was also a major sponsor – one of the two Official Partners.
It was through that lens that Willow’s COO Myers – who previously spent over 16 years as a producer programming director with ESPN – approached the challenge of expanding the MLC’s broadcast audience.
“Look,” says Myers, “we want to grow cricket in the US. And one path to do that is to expose cricket to more mainstream sports fans that are watching other sports.”
So Myers conceived of an ambitious plan only a few months before the tournament to partner with RSNs, namely:
- Monumental Sports Network (DC Freedom)
- YES Network (MI New York)
- ROOT SPORTS (Seattle Orcas)
- Bally Sports Southwest (Texas Super Kings)
- Bally Sports SoCal (LA Knight Riders)
- NBC Sports Bay Area (San Francisco Unicorns)
- NBC Sports California (San Francisco Unicorns)
“These RSNs combined reach a way larger potential audience than Willow. And it’s that exposure piece for the league, for the individual teams and then for the sport of cricket to grow as well.”
Converting local sports fans to cricket fans, one at a time
Beyond the simple exposure math, Myers emphasized the importance of RSNs to introducing existing local sports fans to a new local sports team.
“So we have a deal with Root Sports Northwest. You like Seattle sports? Great. We’ve got another professional team for you to root for, the Seattle Orcas. And oh, by the way, if you’re watching the Mariners game, you can watch the cricket. There’s no additional subscription fee that you have to pay, or subscribe to another tier on television. It’s all Root Sports Northwest. ”
Seattle Orcas CEO Hemant Dua noted how the value was not just in broadcasting into new homes, but also bringing cricket into public spaces, especially sports bars, and introducing the sport beyond the traditional South Asian audience.
“Sports pubs are visited by the local populations and the percentage of South Asians is probably 5% of the foot traffic footfalls, right? And if you look at what’s up on the screen it’s all the time? Root Sports. So even a few matches shown this year, at the pubs thousands will see cricket. That to me if, even out of that a small percentage convert, that’s a huge win.”
The Orcas took it a step further and planned local activations around games, complete with games and fan activities, at major sports bars such as Seattle’s Flat Stick pub:
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Multi-platform collaboration
The partnerships between teams and RSNs also extended beyond broadcast and into social media.
For example, the YES Network (owned by the New York Yankees) did extensive social posts with the MI New York team.
This worked as expected: networks like YES were thrilled to collaborate with players with social media profiles of the magnitude of Rashid Khan.
According to Jared Boshnack, the YES Network VP of Production, “The entire MI New York organization and their partners were incredible to work with and we used assets to collaborate and execute promotions across all of our platforms.”
This was also an effective channel to introduce cricket to new American fans, as seen in priceless comments such as: “Can any of these guys play 2nd base?”
The YES Network also included cricket in its other programming, including a “Cricket 101” segment on Jimmy ‘Jomboy’ O’Brien’s popular studio show.
Playing away from home
Another important function played by these broadcast partnerships was helping solidify the connection between local fans and teams that were not playing in their hometowns.
With the exception of the Texas Super Kings, none of the MLC teams have a home stadium, and these other five teams played all their games on the road in Grand Prairie, TX or Morrisville, NC
In that context, these broadcasts are critical to bridging the gap between now and a future where MLC teams all play home games. David White, GM of the San Francisco Unicorns, explains:
“To take Major League Cricket to its full potential, it’s critical that we have the broadcast partners to take what is a first class sporting product to the widest audiences. We want to give Unicorns fans the chance to watch their heroes while they’re on the road.
“This partnership with NBC Sports is the ideal platform to showcase what the Unicorns are all about to a sports mad Bay Area, and will lay the foundations for future support as we look to build a local fan base capable of filling out our future stadium game in, game out.”
A two-way street
For as much value as the MLC teams and the league are getting out of the RSN partnerships, the RSNs are getting tremendous benefits as well.
For starters, cricket brings with it a very attractive demographic. Just as teams are eager to reach local fans of same-city sports teams, Regional Sports Networks are keen to expand their network to new local audiences, especially the professional-heavy South Asian demographic, which is present in large numbers in all the MLC markets.
Caitlin Mangum, Vice President, Content & Programming at Monumental Sports Network agreed with this: “Cricket is undergoing a surge of popularity in the U.S. and we’re excited for a new audience to get exposure to the plethora of live, local sports programming on our air.”
The other valuable asset that the RSNs are obtaining in these partnerships is the content itself. And this comes at an interesting and challenging time for RSNs, who are facing a major challenge from streaming and OTT models.
The Yes Network, owned by the Yankees, is an exception to these content challenges. But the remainder of the RSNs in question have to license sports content from teams, and are also losing subscribers, leading to well documented challenges to their business models.
Against this backdrop, the content provided by cricket is a very welcome, and attractive, asset.
Educating RSNs
According to Willow’s Myers, when he first reached out to the RSNs about the possibility, they were extremely positive:
“Each of the RSNs was truly very enthusiastic about it. We didn’t have any negativity from the other side of like – oh that’s cricket, we don’t care. No one said viewers won’t care. It was the exact opposite: ‘This is cool. We love to try to be part of this and help grow MLC and grow cricket.’”
At the same time, they needed to be educated, especially on cricket as a broadcasting proposition.
Myers continued: “I had to educate them, which is probably no surprise, on just what the sport of cricket is. Not that they didn’t know the sport existed, but: here’s how a game works, how to use vernacular, how a match plays out – ex. after every over there’s a 30 second commercial, explaining to them that when there’s a strategic time out or when a wicket falls that creates a commercial break. So kind of explaining them to the game. But all of them were very enthusiastic.”
Lessons for the future: an earlier start in 2025
If there was one glaring area for improvement in the future for this initiative, it is in the execution timeline.
Myers reflects on lessons learned: “What would I change? I would engage with our RSN partners a lot earlier. Because literally we were completing deals right up until almost when the first ball was bowled. And that was because we reached out really late to try to make this happen. It takes time to get contracts done.”
As a result, the opportunity was not maximized. RSN schedules are programmed in advance, and not everything could fall neatly into place this time.
Lead time would also help with respect to planning marketing activations like the Orcas pursued.
Myers continued: “Instead of engaging with these partners in mid-May, it should be early April. But the second time around should be easier. They will have (already) done it. We won’t have to go through the education process again, it should be more streamlined.”
All that said, the teams are already getting excited for 2025.
“I think Todd’s done a great job on this,” said the Orcas’ Dua, summing up the sentiment in the league about Willow’s initiative. “So more power to him and we’re very excited and we want to build this and showcase all our games next year.”
