As the inaugural Kia Super League draws to a close, ECB’s Director of England Women’s Cricket, Clare Connor, reflected on the success of the first season for the competition.
Is the ECB happy with the overall success of the Kia Super League this summer?
Yes, absolutely. I am immensely proud of what has been achieved by the Kia Super League on and off the field during the last few weeks. Working from scratch just over a year ago, we have seen some incredible cricket played by six brand new teams in front of fantastic crowds across the country.
A year ago I hoped I would be able to say that the Kia Super League is a game changer for our sport. Now I am confident we can say that. A game changer in driving performance and inspiring more fans and new players to be involved and love our great game.
What was the average attendance during the group stage matches, and are you pleased with this number?
The total attendance figure for the 15 group stage games was over 15,000, with an average group match attendance of 1,031. Everyone is very happy with this figure – from a blank piece of paper 14 months ago, an average crowd of over 1,000 is a real measure of success.
With it being year one for the KSL, we obviously can’t compare these figures directly to previous seasons, but we can look at equivalent competitions, such as the Football Association’s Women’s Super League (FA WSL). During the first season of the FA WSL in 2011, their average attendance was around 550, so we are really pleased with crowd attendances for the KSL this summer.
I think however the most promising aspect is that we have reached a completely new audience. Having chatted to spectators at many of the matches during the competition, it has been really encouraging to find out how many of them were watching women’s cricket for the first time. The blend of traditional county cricket supporters along with mothers and daughters vindicates the time and investment taken to make this competition a reality. It’s incredible to see and hear about the new inspired fan base for domestic women’s cricket in England.”
One of your objectives of the Kia Super League is to inspire more women and girls to become cricket fans, and to have a go themselves. Do you think this has happened?
Yes, definitely. A significant part of the KSL hosting agreement is focussed on a commitment to growing the women’s game in the local community. Throughout the summer, all six teams have done a wonderful job at delivering an abundance of grassroots cricket activity. Examples include Lancashire Thunder re-branding all of their junior club competitions as “Thunder Leagues”, Western Storm using their players to deliver training camps for women and girls across the south-west and the Yorkshire Diamonds working with schools to organise new Diamonds Kwik Cricket competitions for young girls and boys.”
The main driver of the Kia Super League is to create six great teams to bridge the gap between women’s county and international cricket – have you seen signs of this happening?
Yes I have. Assessing the overall standard and from watching how players have learned as the competition progressed, I would say that year one of the KSL has made real inroads in achieving this objective. This was especially pleasing from our young players in the England Women’s Academy programme, and just outside it. Seeing Bryony Smith play for Surrey Stars at the Kia Oval against Yorkshire Diamonds and then a few days later against Lancashire Thunder in Guildford, it was clear she was learning and improving, game on game. Other players such as Georgia Adams, Thea Brookes and Paige Scholfield all performed well under pressure when they had their chance.
How do you feel that the Kia Super League has compared to the Women’s Big Bash League in Australia?
Whilst there are similarities in the drivers behind the creation of the Kia Super League and Women’s Big Bash League – wanting to further raise standards of performance and encourage participation – they are very different in their identity and formation, and I don’t think it is possible to directly compare the two.
The WBBL is an extension of the men’s Big Bash League, and it has benefited in terms of infrastructure, operations, personnel and brand recognition, amongst other things. The KSL is an entirely new proposition for cricket in this country, and we are absolutely delighted with how things have gone in year one.”
Are you happy with the level of media coverage overall?
The volume of media coverage since the very first announcement about the competition back in June last year has been really pleasing – both at a national and regional level. I have been very impressed with how each of the six teams have engaged with their local media outlets throughout the summer, and it has been brilliant to consistently read match reports and feature pieces across nearly all the national papers during the competition, along with regular broadcast reports.
A special thanks must go to the BBC for all of their support and coverage, and in particular to Adam Mountford and his Test Match Special Team for providing live ball-by-ball radio broadcasts from over half of the matches. Sky Sports have also continued their strong support for the women’s game through producing a superb two-part documentary about the KSL – many thanks to Tamzine Neale for all of her hard work on this project.
There was no television broadcast for KSL this summer, what about next year? Might there be the opportunity for televised double-headers with NatWest T20 Blast matches?
The fact that the NatWest T20 Blast will take place in a block in August next summer is a real positive for the Kia Super League. It means that men’s and women’s domestic T20 cricket can “own” August. The ideal outcome would be to stage a handful of KSL matches as double-headers with Blast matches, and for that to work within the broadcast schedule for Sky Sports.
There is no doubt that KSL attendances in year one have proved that there is a captive as well as an untapped audience for women’s cricket. So yes, we are in the throes of exploring what is possible alongside the men’s Blast competition in August next year and I’m excited about seeing how that may look as the 2017 schedule takes shape in the next couple of months.