Yorkshire CCC prove online hit with streaming service

Figures show that the club had 179,231 unique viewers for its home fixtures in the Bob Willis Trophy and T20 Blast, while total views amounted to 325,202.

Unique viewers – those who count as one viewer even if they keep dipping in-and-out of coverage – provide the clearest indication of audience size.

Yorkshire’s would have been greater but for two factors – their first two home games in the Bob Willis Trophy were “members only” before a technical difficulty meant that their final home match was free-to-all, while they lost circa 500 overs to the weather during those fixtures.

Yorkshire were also hampered by the weather in the T20 Blast, with their home games against Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire abandoned without a ball being bowled.

Yorkshire’s T20 home games were all free-to-all, including the last match of the season against Derbyshire, which was actually a home tie for the visitors who were unable to play at Derby because their ground was being used by the England women.

Yorkshire were unable to live-stream their home T20 game against Lancashire, however, as it was selected for satellite television coverage.

In total, there were 137,600 unique viewers for Yorkshire’s T20 home fixtures and 41,631 for their home games in the Bob Willis Trophy.

Mark Arthur, the Yorkshire chief executive, said: “The live streaming service worked really well, and we hope to expand on it because it helps us to reach a much wider audience.

“Ideally, we’d like to make our package even better, with various adjustments and developments so that we continue to improve on our content and reach.

“The production side of things obviously costs money, but we felt that was valuable because it gave people the opportunity to watch the games.

“All those members who do come and support our matches, day-in, day-out, and obviously our sponsors and partners as well, we wanted to give them excellent coverage.”

Although viewing figures for all 18 counties have yet to be published, Yorkshire’s will not be as high as some for the reasons adduced.

The final day of their Bob Willis Trophy match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, for instance, reportedly drew 450,000 hits on Nottinghamshire’s free-to-all stream, with that club having been at the vanguard of live-streaming in county cricket.

There were multiple cameras in operation at Trent Bridge, and Yorkshire would like to introduce more cameras at Headingley in addition to the two fixed and two manned ones behind the bowler’s arm.

There remain questions going forward, though, around monetizing the service, potentially in the form of digital memberships, along with various rights issues that impact on commentary feeds and also the visuals themselves.

“Our viewing figures will be slightly lower than some because we wanted to give value to our members,” added Arthur. “Therefore, for the early rounds of the Bob Willis Trophy, until we had a technical hitch, we were making it available only to members, whereas some counties made it available very widely on YouTube.

“We made it widely available on YouTube for our last home game in the Bob Willis Trophy, against Leicestershire, and that was very well-received.”

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James Mitchinson