ESPN OTL - Test of Times

[Dilscoop]

Wright Thompson at it again. I'm sure you know him from WC11 days.

The new game was invented by a marketing man named Stuart Robertson. He'd been hired by the England and Wales Cricket Board and inherited an unsustainable economic situation with domestic long-form cricket: rising debt, sinking revenue. He did what must have seemed obvious to him, which was to persuade a television network to fund elaborate consumer surveys.

Unbelievably, this was the first time market research had ever happened in the long history of the game, and cricket wasn't prepared for what it found in the mirror. The survey discovered that about a half-million people followed cricket in the U.K., but that around 10 million more would watch if the game was played in three hours. Robertson prepared a presentation for the 18 chief executives of the county cricket clubs who would decide whether or not a shorter game of cricket should be played. One slide silenced the room. Slide 40. It showed the only group strongly opposed to T-20 was over the age of 55. Their fans were dying. The new game was approved, 11-7.

I did not know about this before. Very long and VERY enjoyable.

In America, television executives began looking at cricket, seeing the opportunities and marketing potential, knowing advertisers would salivate over the untapped global market. ESPN recently bought the rights to the next four years of the World Cup, and, with the fan interest rising, dispatched a reporter, who is now sitting in this conference room, watching as the Indian captain, MS Dhoni, arrives to a flutter of cameras.

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