Cricket Australia
Big Bash 14
Problem: Post-pandemic, the Big Bash League adopted a ‘less is more’ strategy: cutting games to boost per-match attendance and fan experience. But in 2023/24, crowds fell 11% year-on-year. The challenge: make every game count to surpass one million attendees. Family fans (44% of the audience) buy late due to busy summer schedules, with 61% of all tickets sold less than nine days out. This last-minute trend was reflected in broader cultural behaviour across live events. Yet early buyers attend nearly twice as many games. With a 13% smaller media budget, the task was to shift ingrained habits, drive earlier sales, and grow overall attendance.
Insight: While types of Big Bash fans differ they’re united by one thing: 49% attend to socialise. Whether it’s mates, partners, or kids, people come to enjoy time together with a spectacle, not just for it. This group-first mindset shapes behaviour, with fans buying early not for discounts, but to secure the best seats for their crew.
Strategy: To grow attendance, we needed to reframe the Big Bash as a shared social experience, something best enjoyed together. Because people don’t just bring others, they often go because of them. By leaning into this truth, we aimed to drive bigger group bookings earlier, knowing people plan ahead to sit together. In turn, boosting early sales, basket size, and match day attendance.
Idea: All the Feels was a platform built on the truth that cricket isn’t just a team sport, it’s a shared experience. It celebrated the diverse fans who come together to feel every moment, from big hits to wickets. Every creative asset brought this to life by showing the emotion of the group: families, friends, and teams, all feeling it together.
The campaign went live loud and early across TV, online video, OOH, audio, radio, print. While display, social, and search swept across to drive conversion. This was delivered alongside Cricket Australia’s own website, social channels, eDM, the BBL App, and media partners such as Channel 7 and Fox.
Results: Positioning the league as a group activity nudged fans to buy more tickets per purchase, increasing the average from 2.9 to 3.2. It also led to a 23% rise in pre-season sales as people bought earlier than before. While the league just missed the 1 million fan mark, partly due to Hobart’s dominance with all of their finals games being at a stadium with the smallest capacity in the league (only 23,000), overall ticket sales grew by 7% year-on-year.
