BR Video: Cricket fails to ignite public feeling

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 15-Jul-09, 09:20

LONDON - Despite The Ashes capturing headlines for England's men's and women's cricket teams, members of the public interviewed in the latest BR Video are not feeling excited about the sport.

The Ashes represent a key opportunity for the sport to widen its appeal, as witnessed by the resurgence in interest after England's triumphant regaining of The Ashes in 2005.

But since then the England & Wales Cricket Board's ambitions have not been fully realised and there have been commercial setbacks -- Vodafone is ending its sponsorship of the England team in January 2010 and the Stanford Twenty20 series was aborted.

Brand Republic sounded people out about how they would be following the Ashes action, and if they weren't, what are their reasons were.

For people who did follow the cricket the internet was named an important channel, but those who weren't interested described it as an older person's game, watched by their parents or grandparents.

There was a lack of interest from the women interviewed, even from those who watched other sports such as football or rugby.

The ECB is planning a grass roots marketing strategy for women's cricket following the achievement of the England team in winning the World Cup and the Ashes this year.

BR Video asked how cricket could be made more appealing to women, and people suggested giving it more media coverage, encouraging schoolgirls to play the game and recruiting women as radio or TV commentators.

The video was provided by Vox Pops International.

Comments

Mark Cadbury - 15/07/2009

Dear me, what a terrible vox pop - damning about the appeal of cricket but also of the general intelligence of the UK population \(I assume it was conducted in London). If people are interested then they will find out the score, after all cricket is a microcosm of life. However, there were a couple of very good points - firstly, schools need to encourage all sport and that includes cricket, secondly, a female commentator on the women's game would help and thirdly the media is definitely to blame for marginalising women's sport in general.