Thoughts on charging for streaming

There has been a lot of discussion in recent days over the future and charging for cricket streams. 

Lancashire - it had to be them, given the fact that they seem to have an innate ability to antagonise support at every turn - will take their County Championship cricket behind a paywall for the remainder of the season

It will cost £20 for the season, which isn't a lot, but it poses more questions than answers. 

Accessing this content appears unnecessarily complex, especially given the demographic of a lot of those who watch county cricket on a regular basis. There will also continue to be a free YouTube stream, which I would have thought most would prefer anyway. 

I have felt for some time the inevitability of a charge being introduced, or at least considered. But it has to be realistic and it has to be negotiated and agreed around all counties. A streaming membership, that enables you to watch content from all clubs, would be okay, as long as realistically priced. If you had eighteen counties, all charging £20 to access their stream, that is not only a lot of money, it's a lot of passwords.

There has to be an understanding that the quality needs to be worth charging for, too. You surely  cannot charge, simply for a fixed camera at either end, especially when it blows around in high winds and leaves you needing Kwells before considering the afternoon session. Camera work and editing has to be to a high standard and that is not something in place everywhere at present. 

The Derbyshire stream is remarkably good, considering it is done on a relative shoestring budget. But on busy days, perhaps when the WiFi bandwidth is squeezed by a large crowd, ghosting of images occurs on the stream (or it did until last season, we haven't seen such crowds this year, as yet). That isn't an issue for a free stream, but it isn't hard to see unhappy customers if they were paying for it. I've seen another stream when a dismissal was missed, with the camera on two blokes chatting in the crowd..

The ECB needs to be involved and potentially negotiate a season membership across all counties. I hesitated in typing that sentence, because as an organisation they seem to have an inverse Midas touch and appear to stumble from crisis to disaster and back with remarkable alacrity.

 Streaming has broadened the appeal of the game. I know I have dipped into a few elsewhere when Derbyshire have not been playing. I'm not sure if I would bother to do that if a casual half hour needed payment, membership and more. 

There was a time in my life, as with most people, when money for the 'extras' was tight. Mortgage, cars, bills, children - they all eat in to the available cash and everyone, like me, needs to prioritise. Life is easier financially, these days, but I will always reserve the right to decide who and what gets my money. If the price and product is right, I will spend it, if it isn't, anything becomes expendable, outwith those I love. I suspect there are many others in similar situations.

If you have to 'cut the cloth to suit', what goes first? Sky? Netflix? Gym? Spotify? National Trust? It would be silly to make assumptions that the game is indispensable to all.

The streams have been invaluable to me, because my location and life circumstances have not enabled me to attend in person as often as I would have liked. I don't consider myself unique in that and I know from the many messages and comments that I receive that there are plenty who live a long way from Derby, yet are as passionate about the club as anyone who is able to attend, pretty much every day of the season. I have never understood the (largely football) mentality that 'I'm a bigger fan than you, because I go to see my team, home and away'. Good for you, we have different priorities in life.  

Having said that, I do feel a waning of my interest in the broader game of cricket. There is a lot in the modern game that I don't enjoy (the national team set up and the ECB high among them) and it would only take a wrong decision, from my perspective, to be a catalyst for change. After sixty years.

Would I be prepared to pay a subscription to watch Derbyshire online? Yes, but there would need to be an understanding that it would need to be potentially tiered, certainly considerably less than a full membership. The Lancashire stream is high quality, one of the best that I have seen, but the number of people attending the game against Derbyshire suggested that charging for access is not going to galvanise their finances. It may indeed be counterproductive. 

Derbyshire membership at £259 is very good value. You can attend the games, savour the atmosphere and the facilities, meet the players and enjoy various benefits. With respect, three hundred miles away, you can't and no matter the quality of the stream, it will never come close to replacing the feeling of being on the ground. Which is why I am so excited about my imminent trips to Derby and Chesterfield. But since the passing of my parents, any trip needs to include fuel costs, four nights in a hotel, food and an ability to predict that the weather will be kind. Or maybe just eternal optimism. There's only one thing more depressing than a wet cricket ground. That's looking out at it from a lonely hotel room..

Any charged stream would also need to offer me access to ALL Derbyshire matches, home and away and be set up in a way that didn't need a qualification in IT to access it all the time. I regard myself as reasonably technical, but there are plenty for who this would be too great a barrier and I wouldn't expect all of them to persevere.

Derbyshire charging would seem unlikely, as the costs would increase to produce the highest level of broadcast, while, as others have pointed out, the sponsors would struggle to find it worthwhile behind a paywall, so too perimeter advertisers. Other clubs may consider it, however, with away fixtures potentially needing paid for by supporters IF they chose to do so.

I know a lot of people whose introduction to cricket has been through the streams, after chatting to them socially. I don't think many of them would continue to watch if they had to pay to. Perhaps the powers that be are less bothered by transient or occasional fans, but they should be. Perhaps their children are the next generation of players and supporters, even if they themselves were exposed to the game accidentally. 

While I accept that an eventual charge is inevitable, my only hope is that those involved think through the ramifications. Such a move will not generate game-changing amounts of money, it will merely further marginalise those who support a level of the game that already appears to be seen as an afterthought. Never on television, harder to find online, the poor relation of franchise cricket. The relative whose name is mentioned only in hushed tones, in some quarters.

For what it's worth, I haven't watched more than 45 minutes of The Hundred, haven't watched the IPL since the match fixing scandals, gave up on the Big Bash when they messed about with the rules and I have only a passing interest in the PSL and SA20. And I consider myself a big fan of cricket...

The concern is that if someone like me can become disenchanted, it isn't going to take an awful lot to lose the interest and support of those whose interest is more casual.

I would like to think that a county like Derbyshire, with one of the lowest memberships in the country, will be sufficiently savvy to realise that the relatively small additional revenue from those prepared to pay for an online stream will not compensate for the loss of goodwill and interest in some quarters. For a part of the game that is already struggling to justify its relevance to the powers that be, I think it moves into potentially dangerous territory. 

You may disagree and that is, of course, your right to do so. 

The next steps will be very interesting. But potentially calamitous for the county game if they get it wrong and lose many of those who have recently got into the game by charging too much, making it too complicated and not thinking through all of the angles.

Just don't make the mistake of saying they are 'not proper cricket fans'.

They are, but their their priorities, finances and circumstances might lead them to make a choice that they would prefer not to have to make.

Postscript - in a statement, Lancashire said

In line with the club's ongoing commitment to growing the women's game, all women's domestic fixtures will continue to be broadcast free on YouTube and remain available on LancsTV.

For men's matches, the opening ten minutes will be streamed free on YouTube, followed by a live feed featuring radio commentary, a live scorecard and replays. The full production will be exclusively shown via LancsTV+.