To watch Women, you have to buy Men.

on Jun 21 in Random tagged bristol cricket women by Peter Blackman

Crack! Another delivery crashed out of the garden, on its way to a sugary plop in the punchbowl of next door’s drinks party.

Cecelia, 8 in July, loves cricket. So do I, but I’m pleased to say that I didn’t push her toward it. Like all genuine enthusiasms she discovered her love of the game herself, thanks to the encouragement of her school and the admirable work of the ECB in marketing the game to young children.

Yet it’s the same ECB who through their marketing and ticketing strategy have completely put me off the idea of taking her to watch professional T20 cricket this summer.

Far too much of the blogosphere is taken up with long winded ranting, so I’ll keep this brief.

First of all, ticketing. In May Cece asked me ‘Do women play cricket?’

“Yes, and the England Women are really good!’

“Can I go and see them play?”

“Of course”

So I went online and was delighted to find that England Women were playing Australia in a T20 game at  the County Ground, Bristol, home to Gloucestershire CCC. I went to book tickets, and found that it was expensive - £45 for me, £25 for Cece. A little more investigation and all became clear. You couldn’t buy a ticket for the womens international without also booking one for the mens international between England and Sri Lanka as well. So to watch the women, you had to buy the men.

Well here’s the thing - Cece, as a girl, wants to watch women play the game she loves. It’s simple really isn’t it - her identity and character are forming, and Cece is looking for role models and validation of her choices. Now there could be no better role models than the women who play cricket for England - successful, independent, confident. Everything that the ticketing strategy is not.

Here’s Gloucestershire CCC chief executive Tom Richardson on the subject ” The England women’s team has been very successful recently and this is a fantastic addition to the day. The 25th June will be a great opportunity to watch two England teams play in the South West and we very much look forward to another exciting day of international cricket in Bristol.”

So there you have it. The women are an ‘addition’ to the day. The mens game would have happened anyway. It would have sold out anyway. It’ll be a success. Will the bundling of the womens game into the ticket package greatly increase sales to male cricket fans? No. Will it drive ticket sales to female cricket fans, or the parents of girls keen on cricket? No.

“Well why don’t you just get your wallet out, take her, and then enjoy the mens match as well?” So said a lot of my (male) friends. Well, to be honest, I’d rather keep her away from the alcoholic carnage that seems to pass for male cricket watching these days. As Barney Ronay has pointed out, Lords now markets itself as ‘London’s biggest beer garden’, and Essex, supported and endorsed by the ECB, have introduced Lazy Bar Walkers, where scantily clad ladies pour fizzy lager into the mouths of manchilds unwilling or unable to lift their enormous backsides out of the scooped cup of their plastic seat.

Viewing that website, even though I know that the Lazy Bar Walkers will not be at the County Ground in Bristol, was the last straw for me. It seems that despite having an incredibly successful womens team, the ECB attitude to women is stuck somewhere in the 1970’s, where womens sport is of little interest, and that young women would be better off grabbing a drinks tray rather than a cricket bat.