County cricket side agreed pilot project with the ECB and Sky

Kent Cricket Play Easel

Kent Cricket has launched a pay-per-view live streaming service with Easel TV, called Kent Cricket Play. 

After agreeing with the ECB and Sky to launch a pilot project just before the beginning of the T20 Blast, Easel TV was brought on board to create the service. As a result, Kent became the first professional cricket club to stream a T20 Blast game behind a paywall.

Easel TV CEO Joe Foster explained: “Working with our client, Kent Cricket, we pretty much created the service within a week having only been approached about 10 days before the first match was due to go live.”

Using Easel’s self-build design tools, Kent was able to set up the channel as well as adapt it to different audiences. In this case a separate market was quickly set up for members who would be given free access to the games, whilst all other consumers were offered all matches, except the first match, for a set pay-per-view price. The first match was offered free to all consumers to attract interest and registrations. Other markets were set up for staff, partners and opponents’ staff to give them free access too.

Kent Cricket Play was set up by Kent senior communications executive Liam Knight, who now operates the editorial.

Kent CEO Simon Storey said: “We had been introduced to the Easel TV model some time ago but restrictions on broadcast rights had always held us back. As soon as we received approval for the pilot, we reached out but when we called on Easel TV, we weren’t sure if this would even be possible.

“It has taken just one existing in-house editorial resource to create the service within a week of Easel TV setting us up with an account – phenomenal. Not least because it was never going to be sufficient to just produce the service; we also needed to know that Easel TV could link up with our content producer, AdVision, and implement a professional streaming service akin to BBC iPlayer or BT Sport. We wanted a proper standalone streaming service that provides a platform for future growth of our digital service and we got it; Kent Cricket Play. We’ve been able to provide a differentiated experience for members and supporters as well, an added bonus.”