Marc Hayward on taking sports engagement to the next level with CricFan TV

Adgully recently had an insightful conversation with Marc Hayward, Founder, CricFan TV, where he shed light on the innovative vision driving CricFan and its potential to revolutionize the cricket entertainment industry. Hayward, the brain behind this endeavour, discussed how CricFan aims to build a vibrant community around fan-driven content, particularly focusing on the passionate cricket enthusiasts in India. Through engaging formats like ‘Fanzone TV’, ‘Queens of Cricket’, and ‘Cricket Chirps’, CricFan seeks to amplify fan voices and enhance the overall viewing experience.

Hayward emphasized the importance of prioritizing fan engagement and celebrating women’s cricket, highlighting the significant strides made in this direction with initiatives like ‘Queens of Cricket’. Despite challenges, including encouraging fans to express themselves on camera, CricFan remains committed to its digital-first approach and continual adaptation to the evolving landscape of cricket entertainment. Hayward also touched upon the metrics used to gauge the success of their innovative formats, emphasizing the importance of sparking meaningful conversations across various platforms.

Could you tell us about your vision for CricFan and how you plan to revolutionize the cricket entertainment industry?

The vision for CricFan is to build a community of fan-driven content. For us, the fans of the sport are the flag bearers of cricket, they’re the people that are responsible; and India being such an amazing country of sport and cricket, with the fans behind it, there’s no better place in the world to do this project for us.

We had a project a few years ago within the football space and we were very pleased with the community that we built around fan-driven content, but with cricket and the Indian fans, it is much bigger. I’m very excited to be producing content which encourages fan engagement. We have developed three properties – ‘Fanzone TV’, ‘Queens of Cricket’ and ‘Cricket Chirps’ – and these three formats encourage the fans to interact with the show. ‘Fanzone TV’ is very fan-based, where we have many sorts of opinions and fans that are interactive with the live show. ‘Queens of Cricket’ focuses on the female cricket space. We are very pleased with ‘Queens of Cricket’ and how that has grown. ‘Cricket Chirps’ derives from the social media conversations and into the TV shows. We’ve developed these properties with Indian TV producers. We just feel that by working together we can develop formats which can travel around the world. We feel that India is in the pole position on the world stage when it comes to cricket and the fans. We hope that we can start the trend of developing formats in India with Indian producers and take these formats around the world, which encourages fan engagement.

What inspired you to prioritize Fan Engagement and innovative formats in cricket entertainment?

We believed that the traditional content around cricket, especially in India, is very stats driven as much as it can be entertaining. These are base on the feedback that we receive from the fans in India. We believe that there are many opinions and there are people at home who would like to have a voice and a say about certain topics, which on the usual platforms might be considered to be slightly controversial. Going back to what we said in our DNA of this idea and vision is that we want to provide the fans with a platform and a voice. So, why would we focus on fan engagement? Because we feel it brings a new wave of entertainment, an alternative option, but definitely not to take away from our cricket shows or entertainment, which is more stats focused. That’s not really the direction where we want to go.

There are great producers out there which are delivering content in that space, we would like to provide alternative entertainment within the cricket space, which would give people another option, but making it as wide audience as possible, including both males and females, both millennials and Gen Z, as well as mature reviewing viewers.

How do you believe fan-centric content creation can enhance a cricket viewing experience?

It becomes more interactive. You are involved with the show more if you realize you could have a say – whether they’re on TV as a TV presenter or a professional cricket player or current professional cricket player, to some people it’s a different world. I believe that there’s so much talent, so much to hear from the fans. We believe by making the show more interactive and including the fans will increase the engagement of a viewership, knowing that they can be a part of the show and they feel probably more of a connection with the various different opinions that they can relate to.

What strategies are you employing to establish yourself as a driving force in the world of sports media, particularly in the realm of cricket?

In terms of strategy, we are partnering with recognized people within the cricket space, such as Fancode is one of our partners and My Team 11 is another fantasy brand that we are partnering with. We also have partnerships with a few others, which probably might be a little bit too early to discuss now, but we are just basically about to finalize a partnership deal with Radio City to go out across all of their radio stations. There is another big brand tie-up on the anvil, which I cannot disclose right now.

We believe that partnering with brands or people or companies which are already well-established in the space creates an ecosystem where we can integrate these brands in our shows and they can integrate us into their output. We work together to create that ecosystem and build the foundations of this fan-driven community.

Why do you think it’s important to celebrate women’s cricket, and how does ‘Queens of Cricket’ contribute to this mission?

‘Queens of Cricket’ is probably the closest format to my heart, because it is something which I believe wasn’t fully executed to the full potential. We believe that the Indian community is standing centre stage on the world platform the driving force behind the fastest growing sport in the world, which is women’s cricket. It is about time that women are respected and given the opportunity to flourish and grow a league.

It’s no secret that the IPL is not just a sports league. It’s a fantastic business which is surpassing many of the sports leagues around the world and now is among the top three, four or five of the biggest sports brands next to NFL and NBA in America and the Premiership league in England in football. IPL is way up there and we would love to see the Women’s Premier League and other female focused sports leagues around the world be in that category, and I think that though it is still in its infancy to a degree, it is growing, and formats like ‘Queens of Cricket’ gives women’s cricket more of a say, more of a platform, more entertainment.

We have run one or two episodes of ‘Queens of Cricket’ on the JioCinema and Sports 18 platforms, and that has proved to be a huge success and this was heavily written about in the media as well. We are also running podcasts, which are reaching millions in terms of engagement and not just solely speaking about women’s cricket, but also interacting and discussing some of the topics in men’s cricket as well.  

We are enjoying playing a part and being a part of facilitating this and providing a platform which supports sports.