UP505 Inside Edge - T20 Women's World Cup

0:00Hello there, Richard Gillis here and welcome to Unofficial Partner. This is an episode of Inside Edge, which is our cricket business series. No Mike Jakeman this week, he's on holiday, but we do have Beth Barrett-Wild and Jen Vile from the ECB and we're talking women's cricket, talking about the upcoming or next year. England is hosting the ICC World 2020 Cup in venues across England. And we talk about that and we talk about the money coming in to the women's game from the 100 and the future of that. So lots there. This podcast is sponsored by Leaders in Sport. Leaders in Sport connects the most influential people and the most powerful ideas in global sport to catalyze discussion and drive the industry forward.

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1:56First of all, let's introduce you both. Can you just say who you are? Let's start with Beth. Yes, I'm Beth Barrett-Wild. I am Director of the Women's Professional Game at the England and Wales Cricket Board and also Tournament Director of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026, which we are hosting here in England and Wales. Excellent. And I'm Jen Vile. I am the Marketing Director of ECB. So look after the marketing for our professionals through to our recreational game. and of course the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in 2026 which I'm very proud and privileged to be working on. Right so you mentioned rugby there let's start there because I think there must be a load of stuff that we're learning or finding out about or it's a sort of quite a nice test case for you guys with the World Cup coming up next year.

2:50Tell me about it where are you what do you think's happening and there's anything popping out for you at this stage I know it's not over yet so we're not we're not in a full review process but what's your sense? I think they've got off to a flying start haven't they I think across that opening weekend I think we saw records breaking in pretty much every single space I think from an attendance perspective they got over 80 ,000 I think didn't they across that opening two days and I think they've come out and said that they've already sold over 400 ,000 tickets so look I think it is big I think it's incredibly exciting I think between World Rugby and the RFU and the local organising committee, they've done a brilliant job in terms of how they've set that tournament up.

3:29I think they've had big ambitions going into it, and I think they're already starting to deliver on that. And I think it's just, yeah, look, really, really exciting time for women's sport and women's rugby. And I think it's sort of, yeah, churning out those attendances. But I think the bit that I've also been really impressed and excited with actually is more the off-field stuff. So I think we've seen some amazing announcements around selling out the sponsorship portfolio and again I think a testament to the the rights team at World Rugby for the job they've done there but I think also more interestingly perhaps how they are if you have really worked with the Red Roses and some of the collaborations they've done with the likes of Barbie and I think they've done one with Merlin haven't they and Thorpe Park which is just again trying to get that team into a different audience space and really sort of breaking it through into a different environment so look I think it's incredibly exciting I sometimes look over I'm very competitive so I sometimes they go with slightly envious eyes at the impacts that they're already having.

4:23But I think from a sector perspective, obviously, it's brilliant to have that happening. And we can certainly take that momentum into 2026. It's quite interesting, that first gen, that first weekend sort of syndrome. People, because that's where everyone is looking, isn't it? So there is that sense of, you know, has it got off to a good start and whether or not that sets the tone. And this might be a sort of media coverage thing rather than real life, where people have bought tickets and are going anyway. But you've got that narrative of big events. And you can see it. It's not just women's sports events.

4:55It's every sports event. You start to, people get a bit micro on attendances, gaps in the stadium. They start to look at viewing figures quite quickly. And then that sort of fades away. But a good start is a big thing, isn't it? Yeah, it's absolutely massive. And I think we've got a brilliant fixture to start our tournament in 2026 with England versus Sri Lanka at Edgbaston. Edgbaston obviously been massive for women's cricket in recent years and have that legacy of hosting the Commonwealth Games. So, yeah, that opening weekend we know is really important. And as Beth said, they've done an absolutely brilliant job on the Rugby World Cup.

5:40And we'll absolutely be looking to emulate that, I think. As you know, I came along to the launch event at Lourdes for the T20 World Cup. What am I calling it? I know I'm always getting this wrong. In long format, it's the ICC Women's T20 World Cup. But I think we can just call it the Women's T20 World Cup or the T20 World Cup. Yeah, we'll get there. But I thought it was a really nice event. it was really interesting and the way you did it was interesting and I thought there was a load of questions in the room and I thought it'd be quite you know it would be nice just to sort of feed some of those back and and talk about some of these things Beth you had you did a um I was by the way I've still got my oh very good I've got my notepad I mean I love I love a free notepad you have me at notepad but um so i again i wrote down attendance viewership iconic figures revenue culture change and new tribe new era those were the notes that i wrote down as you were talking scribbling away um is there a sort of playbook that you're looking at let's just sort of take me through the whole big picture thing before we get too specific into into details But just give me a sense of the ambition of the thing, because I came away thinking, blimey, there's a lot hanging on this.

7:02Yeah, it's a big opportunity, isn't it? I think we recognise it is a big shot window for us. I think the overarching vision for the tournament is the year that women's cricket breaks into the mainstream and stays there. And we actually debated at length around that vision. And I think we had early iterations around almost like a nation falling in love with women's cricket. and perhaps felt that was a little bit too fluffy and we needed something a little bit more tangible. And we landed on this word mainstream because I think that does just demonstrate the scale of that ambition. It is about breaking through into popular culture and having that sort of sustained popularity, for want of a better word.

7:38And that's all around sort of taking this moment and really affecting long term change. I think that's one of the really key things that we just wanted to stress, both in that moment in the launch event, in terms of how we're setting out to approach this event. But actually, in every single action that we're taking in terms of building the competition, is that this is more than just a one-off moment. We don't want to just break records in the moment. Of course, we want to have as many people come along and watch the tournament next summer as possible. But it's actually the aftercare and what happens after that and that behaviour change around how people think and feel behind women's cricket.

8:12So the launch event was super important for that. The vision is big. Like I said, we kind of debated that word mainstream and actually had a funny conversation early on in the piece when we were debating that with a colleague who will remain nameless and an agency that I won't mention about the word mainstream itself and almost a sentiment that it's almost a little bit naff and it's kind of like well you know remember when Gales was like a boutique kind of independent coffee chain that people went to and now it's everywhere it's in Liverpool Street Station and I remember thinking to myself I don't want to be Gales I want to be Greg's I want to be the most popular um team sport out there and I think like just making sure we've got that North Star and that big mainstream ambition that people can really understand and get behind has just been really important in terms of how we're looking to plan deliver the event in the moment but then also that aftercare piece I think as well that that this is the this is the job to be done for women's sport now I think you know that we've seen the enormous growth over over the past sort of decade or so um and there's been a huge amount of done of work done to really raise the profile of women's sport i think the the work we feel that needs to be done now it and then i i will talk about it in marketing terms because that you know that that's that's my bit but is it's kind of brand consideration it's a about that that sort of deeper connection is that is the next phase of of um of growth for women's sport and women's cricket we feel and mainstream is a signal of the fact that you've got a lot of people connecting with your product and in this case women's cricket just to sort of bounce off that slightly so mainstream is quite again it's it's an interesting word i can see why it would have been something that you talked about you know at some length because i'm not sure I'm just trying to think what mainstream is now in this media, you know, as media is sort of disintermediated, then almost everything is a niche where it can, you know, it's a sort of big, some of them are big niches.

10:17Other than, again, it's not, I don't want to get into comparisons, but you've got some, and it's men's football, Premier League, you know, is a mainstream product, like you would say. But then other than that, here in the UK, I'm not sure many are. And it's sort of a series of niches, some of which are bigger than others. And the sort of the way in which I think it's an interesting line in terms of trying to capture every because there's a sort of the essence as I read it is that you're trying to capture everyone. And I can see that's a laudable sort of ambition I'm just wondering if actually what the alternative would be because quite often with strategy I quite often think okay well what's the inversion of that what would be a niche strategy I definitely don't want one of those I think look it can be a niche can be pretty big you know but yeah it could be big niche and I think it's more around the I guess the perception of women's cricket in particular and I think it is that kind of trying to shift perceptions that it's not just sort of a niche curiosity but it's more of a normalized interest yeah like one of the phrases that Jen uses a lot that's really helped me it's like taking it from being like this constant like challenger brand status and just trying to really embed it into a bit more of a kind of market leader mentality and look I appreciate that it is lofty to say that we're going to capture everybody in the country next summer we're realistic to recognize that that's that's not going to be the case but I think there's also something here about that longevity piece for me I think it's about that stickability and the fact that I think women's sport fandom like um as it talks about the launch events um on the 1st of May like we've had these big iconic profile moments for women's sports um in particular over the last sort of 20-25 years but through time but for various reasons they're just not quite stuck and we've not had that maintained fandom around it and that retained um audience so look I think it probably could be that it's the case of being um big niche or however we want to position it but i think the sentiment and i think it's also just super important when we've set out on this journey to have a very clear north star as to what we are trying to do i just want to clarify what i mean because actually this is the same conversation i had with mark bullingham at the fa about you know their line is for all you know so and i i think it gets to what strategy looks like in in a in a governing body and is that just setting up you know i i i get that i want everyone to play and we want to talk to everyone but actually where does that where are the lines and where does it stop and start is that is my point i guess well this is definitely where jen can jump in with our very sophisticated audience strategy that we're applying yeah so so rest assured richard that we we are being strategic and we do have specific target audiences um so yeah i mean we did a we did a huge piece of segmentation work um last year actually and that was that was a cricket wide segmentation not just women's cricket but what we sought to understand was where does women women's cricket fit within effectively our wider cricket portfolio um so from so give us the segments i love a segment give it give us the segment so um do you want the actual names of the segments i do i do i want i want as much about this as okay lovely um well i'm happy to give you the four the four segments so we've got devotees all format fans cricket converts and bandwagoners and they're basically a mixture of people who some who already have an affinity with cricket people who've come more recently into the sport and often that's via the hundreds um i'm sure you can imagine which segment that is and then people with kind of little or no affinity to cricket who we know we can grab their attention with a global event um and you know utilize women's cricket and at times a global event um on home soil to bring them in similar to how we've managed to do that through previous ashes or World Cups in the past.

14:28So we do have a real focus around where we want to put our specific marketing focus. But I think the key thing here is if we can get into those audience, the mainstream element is that talkability, that shareability. It's featuring in people's WhatsApp groups, in their Facebook community groups. And that's my thought about it. And I think the important thing about mainstream is it's it's also the mindset that we bring as a team to curating and delivering this this tournament and everything that goes around it. How many? What's the size of the universe of that segment, you know, across the board?

15:14The broader audience segmentation is that is large is sort of in the around the 20 million mark. This particular audience, it's now having to do some mental arithmetic, Richard, which is not my strong point. I think it's probably around 16 million in terms of those four segments. So it's chunky. So the total universe of potential cricket, women's cricket fans are 16 million. Yeah. I mean, I think it's broader than that, actually. But the audience that there's because there's other segments that are open to women's cricket. but the audience that we are looking to target uh are those is that sort of figure how does what you say to them change let's take one of those you know and i love the bandwagoners by the way i've never heard that but that's that's one i'm going to use but there's a there's a what what are you saying to them that you how are you targeting them where are they just give us a bit of detail on them i mean it it's relatively simple in that we're we're telling them that women's sport is and women's cricket is brilliant the range of their affinity probably is the nuance of how that comes across so how technically we talk about the sport for the high affinity fans um who who are already into their cricket as we know women's cricket is really compelling because it it provides a different type of um of cricket experience and I mean that both sort of largely on the pitch but off it as well um yeah in terms of the the style of play that the players produce which is different from the men but is compelling in its own right um yeah through to the ones who are are lower affinity it is going to be more about big event home soil can't miss it FOMO so there's that sort of range of messaging but at the core is going to be a combination of this is brilliant sport and this is an unmissable event and a bit of nuance in between it's interesting beth that i when in my brief sojourn into agency way world it was i found it fascinating how when clients and cricket was one of them and it was a previous world cup where they the the sort of how much we talk about cricket was a question on everyone's mind and in an ad agency or a marketing a big marketing network quite often the the incentive or the temptation or people just don't know enough about cricket so they move the conversation to the cultural stuff it comes about you know it's about indian food it's about sort of west indian cricket culture all coming as streets of you know vendors and it that activation becomes quite attractive because and i always and i remember having a conversation with um and i won't name them but they're from it's a previous regime at the ecb but they one of the we had three routes and one of the routes was a cricket route you know and they physically recoiled from it they say well no we can't go we can't go there So this was it was sort of astonishing to me.

18:29And I but I don't. I think that's quite a broad sense. When cricket gets filtered through marketing, sport gets filtered through marketing, actually moving it away from, as Jen said, the technical aspects to broader territory. territory like I wonder if something gets lost there yeah possibly and I think actually Jen touched on it in terms of the different maybe types of conversation we want to have with those different audience groups so one of the things that we've done actually with our digital team is looking when we talk about is it the same or different in terms of style of play on the field large elements of it are it's about versus ball sports and the the types of shots are largely similar but actually what we found out is there are some elements of the women's game that are very different so we've got these amazing statistics around um it's got more precision and control and how can we have a conversation around that so um that comes through from something like bowling so there's a greater proportion of balls bowled in women's t20 cricket that will go on to hit the stunts than there are in men's cricket and that is just a different style of play thing so that's kind of where we've identified quite a cool stat about women's cricket that we can talk to that probably that devotee group who are already you know they're committed cricket fans that have got a very strong openness they might already be following women's cricket or they might be open to it and we can start almost sharing some of that insight with them to really embed their knowledge and understanding and I think that's one of the big things that again we want to do through the World Cup next year is we really want to kind of yeah create those kind of that habitual following through that embedded knowledge and understanding of who the players are what their skill sets are what makes Phoebe Litchfield from Australia a 360 cricketer that's different to say I don't know a Nats of a brunt or a young Davina Perrin so they're the sorts of conversations we want to be having there but then of course there are elements that in perhaps that bandwagoner group that it might be more about the experience and I think it's much talked about in terms of women's sport how perhaps it is a slightly different experience to a men's event at the moment and perhaps given the the audience demographics in the ground in particular it is a more female um feel to it and and therefore we do talk more about the off-field opportunities as well and how we present that so it's like I think it's it's a complicated one right like we need to make sure that we're tailoring our communications appropriately but I think the big thing for me through the tournament next year is how we can just really start to grow the knowledge of who the women's players are what they're about and what makes them brilliant and I Jen said it before in terms of like a big part of our whole strategy behind the comms and the marketing is to try and move away from selling the progress and just start celebrating and selling the sport itself because it is it is world-class quality now and that's what makes it brilliant and that's why people want to come back time and time again it was interesting the we had you might listen to it with uh Joe Connolly and Sky and Claire from Gemba and they were there was the question was who's watching women's sport but cricket was in you know the group but it was a cross sport and Sky's lens and get the Gemba research was counterintuitive to me because I agree with you in terms of the same or different is a key question when it comes here and it sort of audience it means that you're behaving differently they want different things and their point being there's a very distinctively different audience in the stadium but on television via sky it is still predominantly men and men you know take up a large proportion of the audience who are watching and I wonder whether that's what you're seeing but also what you do with that information because I sort of and on the podcast itself I it felt like it undermined the some of the commercial messaging because if the if it's different I get it it's it's not male sponsors it's people who want to target women and kids and families and younger and more diverse.

22:30All of that is a great news for women's sport. What they're saying is, no, actually, it's 70 percent. So I think the interesting thing here is about the different channels through which the audiences are consuming women's sport. And I think that's a big part of the variation. um if we look at our segmentation for example those segments that I talk through there are sort of they're 50 50 male and female so um in terms of demographic split so and that includes the high affinity fans by the way I think that is the difference that you see with women's sport is that the the profile of people the demographic profile of people coming into the stadia is different um but it doesn't necessarily necessarily mean that they are completely different fans it's just that that their their consumption behavior in terms of attendance is is different from um from men's cricket and then yeah linear broadcast i to a degree it's going to be a little bit self-fulfilling probably because there is a higher proportion of male i imagine male subscribers to um to sky sports um but i think yeah i think it's about 70 or 80 i think yeah i think it's 80 so so that that is going to be a little that's probably going to be a little bit self-fulfilling i think it's interesting to look at the demographic of of audience on lots of different channels because like you said earlier we are working in a very fragmenting media landscape now so you have to consider all those different touch points and look at those and so for example with um with the hundreds tiktok channel it's a really really female audience consuming the hundred on that channel and when you start to look at those in the mix you do see that that actually that there is a very different demographic consuming women's sport but it's just potentially in slightly different spaces right yeah yeah now i get that it's interesting okay so there's a question here and you mentioned it early right at the start beth which is the sort of day after the tournament and you've got this question which lots of sports wrestle with which is the gap between the stars and the tournament the big tournament moment so you've got the world cup coming i can see lauren bell is going to be a superstar through that event and you know through the other side so but it's it's the bit in the middle and this is a hundred question I'm guessing or something along you know in terms of how that is sustained how you keep those four segments on board how many will stay for the ride and how you do it so it's the inevitable one that you've been thinking about for years and years and years so I'm just trying to sense where you are with it and what we know now about that that journey yeah so look I think this is one of the reasons why I'm incredibly confident um in our kind of mission to to reset normal and behaviours around the women's game next year through the World Cup is because we have the infrastructure in place now to really capture that audience.

25:38So when we get hundreds of thousands of people through to watch the tournament next year, straight after the final ball is bowled on the 5th of July, we'll go into, well, there's a women's test match at Lord's, an India women's test match at Lord's. But then there's also Blast Women's Finals Day, which is I think the following weekend after the final in the World Cup. And then we go into the 100. So we've got opportunities straight away for people to have fallen in love with particular players and teams through the World Cup to then go on and watch and follow those players and teams through those three vehicles.

26:11And I think actually one of the really exciting things through the 100 in particular that we've been able to, what we will be able to leverage is the overseas stars. So it's not just the England players. I mean, Lauren Bell, I think is, you know, she is destined for greatness. She's had a brilliant summer again this year and she will be one of hopefully the standout performance of that World Cup. But I think there are also going to be some brilliant performances from other nations and other players who will then be playing across those 100 teams. So I think we have a massive opportunity next year to be able to convert that attention into that longer term piece.

26:44And perhaps in a way that if you look back at 2017, when we had the Women's Cricket World Cup here last time, we didn't quite have those tournaments, those competitions, those formats to catch that attention into. And that probably was actually the big spark that set us on this journey of really professionalising the women's game. And in terms of the 100, since we last spoke, we spoke before almost the 100 launched, or it was the first year of it, and the women's game has been a success story from the launch period. Where are we now? There's an obvious question about what the new ownership means for that story, Because are they as keen on women's cricket as the previous, you know, regime or the ECB are?

27:30Is that because they've now bought these things? There's a lot of money being laid down for 100 franchises. And where the women's game sits within that? Because that's a financial, but also you've got a different cast of people now that you're talking to. Yeah, so look, the 100 has been transformative, I think, for women's cricket and indeed women's sport, actually, in terms of how people think and feel about it. So it's had an enormous impact through the first five years of that competition. I think we've had over 1.5 million people now come through to watch those women's matches across those first five seasons.

28:04My understanding from conversations that we've had internally about the investors coming in is that they're very committed to the women's competition. I think it's one of the things that they see as being unique almost actually in terms of the properties that they're investing in, the fact that they've got a men's and a women's team directly aligned alongside each other is very compelling. I think there's been a lot of excitement around it. And I think people can really see the growth opportunity to that. So I'm very confident that we're in a brilliant space, we've built something very special.

28:36And I think actually, just when you look at the 100 generally, like I've probably been a little bit removed from it this summer with the World Cup prioritisation, etc but like I've really followed it as a fan and it's amazing what we do with the 100 year after year it is a one month window where it almost feels like an Olympic event every summer that we're delivering and the fact that we've got you know 34 days of cricket with the men and the women on that shared platform with that double header format is really really compelling and exciting and I think we now have yeah people that follow and are fans of those teams that are fans equally of the men's and the women's team.

29:13So, yeah, I think it's incredibly exciting. I think the investment coming in will help to grow the whole game. And I think the best thing is that, yeah, the women very much and very firmly have a seat at the table within that. And are the new owners contractually obliged to support the women's team? Is that within what they've bought and there is a commitment there that they've paid into? Yes. Yeah. So I think through the various legal agreements that we have, of which there are very many, I understand. And there's one in particular, there's a participation agreement. And I think the co-positioning of the men's and the women's teams within that is very much baked into it.

29:49OK, right. I've got a marketing question, Jen, which came out again of our session at Lords, which I hadn't thought about it actually until someone mentioned it. So it's the team branding question again, which you'll be familiar with. So we've just had a Lionesses summer. you've got the Red Roses playing in the rugby cricket has gone a different way and one of the one of the points in our group that I was was in is what do we call them and it's obviously it's England and there's there's a you know um we are one is the positioning just take me through that and what and the sort of pros and cons of that so I've been at the ECB for a little while Richard and actually took this on as a piece of work when I started in the marketing team at ECB in the build-up to the 2017 World Cup where we looked at exactly this.

30:47We saw then lionesses, red roses, and we did explore it. We looked at whether there was an appropriate brand identity for want of a better phrase and kind of two elements to this. Firstly, we couldn't really find anything that was that authentic and that wasn't naff or cheesy. And I think that is really important. In branding, it has to feel right and authentic. And the second component of that authenticity piece is that we spoke to the players and they said that they didn't want a different name, that they were very happy being the England women's cricket team. And really, you know, we didn't want to be imposing a moniker on them when they when that wasn't something that they were looking for.

31:38And then we've we've just refreshed the brand work again, as you alluded to there. And the same thing came through. We, you know, we'd spent spent plenty of time talking to the players, the coaching set up. and um and actually what the sentiment was across the men's women's and disability teams is that they liked being unified under this single umbrella of england i mean one of the things that you know when you do a podcast like this you get a lot of people coming on and talking about new team brands so you know across things like i mean the hundred is full of new team brands isn't it essentially so i can sort of see a crowd there and whether or not that was part of the the the challenge sort of landing i you we want them to support a hundred team afterwards so it's the sort of identity thing i don't know i i'm i'm i'm i'm sort of interested in brands because i agree with you most of them you sort of recoil from new ones no you know it's like either i was i always laugh at the live golf brands because they're just fantastically bad and but you know then and then the idea being that you just keep going and they become normalized over time i suppose but it's interesting that you've gone a different way and whether or not that will be the just the strategy going forward you must get asked this yeah we do um and i think that the key when you are building brands is to make sure that you are building off an authentic truth about the the product that you are putting a brand around and an audience truth and so and that I think is a big part of why the hundred brands have been so successful because of the way the way we built those the way we developed those identities was was based on a huge amount of of audience insight um and as I say it's the same thing that we've applied to to the england brand is looking at the things that are true and authentic about that that brand of the and the teams and also how the audience consumes it and um i think that's where you where you go right is you you don't have to do what your competitors or or your allies do you need to do what's going to be right for the product the brand and the audience beth I'm interested in how you think this is going to revolve in terms of at that sort of franchise level.

34:08Because, again, the conversation in the men's game is that you're seeing people like me are projecting on to what they think is going to happen. And there's going to be a sort of global franchise circuit, which would include the IPL owners and they will be buying up various things. The US is a big marketplace. Peter Hutton is interested in who's on from, you know, he's recalling his days at Meta. saying that the reason he's bullish about cricket in America is that he's seen Facebook's numbers on that. And there is a, you know, genuine enthusiasm there. All the obvious cricket markets and you can start to see a global franchise sort of marketplace.

34:46You've got the WIPL, you've got the 100 and, you know, you've got other sort of sparks around the place. What's your take on when you're sitting back from your job, your day job, and you're looking at, OK, how is this going to evolve? Is it going to evolve along the same lines? Is it going to follow that pattern, do you think? And everything, you know, the franchise game will emerge as the core. Yeah, so I do think about this quite a lot, actually. And I think my overriding thought on it is that the trends we are seeing in the men's game will be accelerated in the women's game. so I think the global franchise growth in particular around the hundred and the level of investment and what we've built so far and that the WPL which pretty much overnight transformed the women's cricket economy in India those five franchise teams being sold for a combined total of about 500 million I think with a broadcast right still also in the hundreds of millions and then also the WBBL has been sort of the big three in the women's market and I think where we are right now is that they work really brilliantly together in a really kind of cohesive way and that does currently fit with the international schedule as well so we're actually in quite a nice place in women's cricket right now in terms of how those kind of that international domestic franchise market fits.

36:13I think what is going to be interesting as the game continues to grow is whether there is a precedence that's taken. And I think if you just look at the quality that's being played in some of those franchise competitions now, it's very, very high. I think the final of the 100 on Sunday was excellent. I think the eliminated the day before was brilliant. And I think the quality of those domestic competitions is super high now. And I I think there is an element of, I guess, concern in terms of the depth of the international women's games. I think we're seeing, you know, you've got India, you've got England, you've got Australia.

36:49Australia have been an absolute juggernaut in the women's cricket landscape for the last 10, 15 years. We need to try and make sure that that gap between those three and the others doesn't get too big. And I think that is a role that the ICC are very aware of. And actually, that's where things like World Cups are super important to ensure that we're providing opportunities for nations around the world to play and compete on that global stage. But I do think it's one of the things that irks me slightly, actually, when people say about how women's sport and women's cricket, well, you're working from a blank piece of paper.

37:21We're not working from a blank piece of paper. It's a heavily populated piece of paper that we do, though, have the opportunity to continue to curate to an extent. and I think we are we're in a really really exciting phase and I think everything that's going on in India at the moment in particular is again it's just going to take years off that growth curve and that's sort of the supply chain of talent question which again is is it's one of those bits which people find you know is unsexy but critical and they start they jump to the entertainment layer quite often and then they forget actually you've got you know the players are being expected to play you know suddenly they're playing everywhere and it's that next generation is that where explain what project darwin is because i sort of didn't quite know what that was uh this makes me chuckle because project darwin should never have been a public facing um like phrase by the way but it is every year i love the fact that people know what it is So Project Zion was something that I worked on through 2023, 2024 in my role as the professional game director for women's cricket.

38:29And it is the transition of our regional women's domestic structure, which was our first iteration of the professionalisation of women's domestic cricket in this country, that we did through eight regional teams, which were conglomerates of counties. So, for example, where I'm sat here in Essex, we had the Sunrisers and that was a combination of Essex, Middlesex and Northhance. They had a regional host. it was quite nomadic there wasn't great identity attached to it the players whilst it enabled them to become professional cricketers because they were employed and contracted to play cricket they lived quite a nomadic existence and there were some other challenges to it around identity and the opportunity to commercialize that platform and things and accountability really so we went through a phase where we transitioned that into where we are now which is our three tiered county structure so we've now got eight professional county clubs with professional status in tier one and we've got 10 professional county clubs in tier two and then we've got our national council in tier three but that is our professional domestic infrastructure for women's cricket in this country and we now have over 130 female professional cricketers in that tier one level which means that to your point there about really making sure we've got the pathways and the progression in place we have got a very good very strong very stable infrastructure underpinning everything that we're looking to do whether it's through the hundred or through international cricket but that has taken you know five five to ten years of very intentional investment and to develop and grow that and that hasn't happened overnight it's happened quite quickly but we have got yeah a very robust women's professional game structure in this country now that does align with the men's professional county clubs albeit whilst in the men's game you've got your 18 professional counties in the women's we've got eight tier one professional counties albeit growing to nine next year with the addition of Yorkshire.

40:19We had a little bit of controversy through our tender process. Yorkshire and controversy are quite often words that go together, aren't they? If you throw in women's cricket as well, then... In the history, maybe, hopefully not moving forwards. But they will be joining Tier 1 next year as an expansion team. And then we'll actually have Blamorgan joining Tier 1 in 2027 as a second expansion team. So by the end of 2027, we will have 10 professional county clubs in this country. so we'll have upwards of probably about 180 professional female cricketers then so we're really growing that depth is what i'm trying to say here is and it's the it's the i guess the point it's interesting you say that it shouldn't have been made public because actually there's an argument to say it should be made public because actually that's really hard work over a long period of time it people you know people take it for granted and the business conversation is very flip about that sort of thing you know and i think there's a there's a whole load of stuff in there that is day in day out grind which no one you know is sort of private equity never want to do that you know they always sort of assume that work is being done so there's a there's a you know that's that's you're to be congratulated there i've got a question that is um so how do i frame it i've got a sense i mean it's this is a sort of the the the attitude and This goes far beyond cricket, but where people's views of women's sport.

41:41Let's talk about that, because I think there's been a sense of change, whether we blame Donald Trump and the attacks on DEI or whether it's something. There's something in the air that people feel it's OK now just to go and attack and dismiss it and the rest. And you'll be more than familiar with, you know, all the lines of argument that come here. at the end of this there's a sort of sponsorship question i guess in terms of what the has that filtered into the sponsorship decision making process in terms of whether or not sponsors are still seeing women's sport as an exciting vibrant forward-looking antidote to the men's game which again is a story it's a powerful commercial story and you talk to people like unilever and pepsi and you know which we do on here and they are very engaged in that story I just wonder whether or not the political noise is going to impact on that it's a big question but it's it's not specifically about cricket but obviously cricket is involved what do we think I'm not sure Jen whether your role is because I never know with marketing and commercial where that sits and there's always a bleed between those but you'll have yeah I mean there's that's absolutely right I mean there is an important intersect between marketing and commercial and And I don't think that's what we're seeing in women's cricket, certainly.

43:00I can't speak for other women's sports, but certainly not what we're seeing. I mean, the fact that the ICC have women-specific partners and they're selling more and more sponsorships just of their women's cricket products, the appetite and demand that we've seen and the commitment from sponsors on our England cricket programme doesn't tell that doesn't tell that story what it you know what it continues to suggest as you say is that those brands see a powerful storytelling opportunity with women's cricket and women's sport so yeah I don't see that translating through at the moment and certainly all that signifies from an audience point of view is that the demand is there for women's cricket and for this tournament that we're looking at next year that you know that being the absolute pinnacle of a world cup being a pinnacle of the of the sport we certainly haven't seen any dampening in demand for that.

44:07I think just like through our approach at ECB to partnerships as well like we have a collective approach and how we sell um those those deals i'm trying to move away from the word bundled because i feel like it's got some sort of negative connotation attached to it because we're certainly not bundling the women's rights into that um but from the conversations that we've had with our commercial team like the women's uh rights within those conversations are often the thing that the the partners and the sponsors want to speak about the most and in fact i've actually got an email through yesterday saying that we've got a couple of new prospects and they're super interested in what we can offer through the women's game.

44:44So I think to just echo Jen's point, I don't think we're seeing any kind of like negative backlash there. If anything, I think, you know, we've got committed partners who very, very much value the women's element. Okay. That's good to hear. Right. Excellent. So we can put that question to bed. There's right. Just to finish off, I just want from each of you a sort of dream scenario, really in terms of what the you're sitting there at lords you know on the sunday of the final england will have won obviously it goes without saying what are you thinking hoping for jen you go first um so i very much hope that um on the day of that final i do have a glass of uh of something bubbly in my hand but yeah i would project further forward than that to 2027, we'll have the Women's Blast competition, we'll have the 100, we'll have the Ashes.

45:39And what I hope we're going to see is loads of people coming through the gates to watch women's cricket, having been inspired by the Women's World Cup, engaged in it, deepening their fandom through it. And that's really a key part of what we're trying to do here with this World Cup. We've talked about it as a movement rather than a moment. We know it is a landmark opportunity, but how that translates and captures people's fandom and connects them with the women's game going forward, for me, that's going to be a massive part of our marker of success. I want the bandwagoners to have t-shirts and bucket hats so you can identify them coming back a year later.

46:25That's such a good idea. We should totally do that. They just, they fall off me ideas. It's easy. I never do anything. I have lots of ideas. I think it's similar for me. I think it's, as Jen's touched on there, it's not just the in the moment success. I think it is about projecting forwards and maybe not just in the year after, but sort of in five to 10 years time, what the game looks like. And I think a big North star for me is making sure that it is as equally relevant, equally accessible and equally visible for my five-year-old son, as it is my five-year-old, seven-year-old daughter. So I think it is that kind of, it is that long-term impact that we want to try and see come through here.