UP226 How to market test cricket

Today's episode was prompted by a question posed by author, journalist and regular listener Mike Jakeman: How do you market test cricket successfully?"The national cricket boards have figured out that the big money comes from success in the shorter formats. And certainly in England, their focus has been on building success in one day in 2020. It's been very successful. England obviously won the 2019 ICC World Cup and they reached the final of the T20 World Cup late last year.But test cricket, it's fun too. And it delivers slow burn, sporting excellence in ways that limited overs cricket just can't replicate. So how do we sell test cricket to broadcasters, sponsors and even the cricket boards themselves?"To answer Mike's question we recruited Omar Chaudhuri and Tony Singh. Tony Singh is the chief commercial officer of the England and Wales cricket board, leading the teams responsible for all ECB fan engagement and revenue generating activity across England cricket, The Hundred, recreational and professional games. Omar Chaudhuri  is chief intelligence officer at Twenty First Group, which advises sports bodies, such as the Premier League, European Tour, USGA and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. This conversation builds on other cricket related podcasts.Omar is a former guest on the podcast where we talked about jeopardy and the use of data to inform sporting formats - UP181 The Business of Jeopardy. Also mentioned in the podcast is the excellent Sky Sports Ashes Vodcast, featuring Ian Ward, Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain and Rob Key.Our conversation with ECB CEO Tom Harrison is referenced, from May 2021. Hear that on UP161. UP16 Ed Smith, former head England cricket selector and author.UP50 We Need To Talk About Cricket with journalist Tim Wigmore.UP 125 Rajasthan Royals franchise owner Manoj Badale on the lessons of the IPLUP145 2005 And All That, the story of Channel 4 CricketUP105 A New Innings, with Simon HughesUP198 Inside The HundredUP5 From Packer to The Hundred, with Tim Crow and Derek PringleThe Unofficial Partner newsletter goes out to thousands of people across the sports business every Thursday. Sign up at UnofficialPartner.com or via SubstackUnofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.