Our short attention spans could have killed cricket. Innovation saved it.

For cricket lovers of the world, the Australia summer of cricket is something of a highlight, accentuated this season with the high octane Big Bash League (BBL) really coming into its own.

Amazingly, more than one million people came through the gates, taking BBL into the top 10 of the most attended sporting leagues. That’s for the world, not just Australia.

The sight of more than 80,000 fans packing into the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground when organisers were planning for no more than 40,000 tells us all we need to know about capturing the public’s imagination.  

BBL (a tournament of short form cricket matches known as T20) is a brilliant example of how innovation and risk-taking can pay off. It illustrates, through the lens of cricket, how disruption works; how something new and unexpected can completely challenge the accepted order of things in a very positive way.

The lessons are there, and they’re applicable not just for sports administrators but for all of us in business.

What is impressive from a business perspective is that the sport’s administrators, Cricket Australia and its international counterparts, have taken the substantial risk of disrupting their own business model by introducing this new innovation. This from a sport more associated with tradition and blazer wearing than any other.

T20 isn’t a new concept in itself – it has been played for a long time in a club setting – the attraction being the shortened time required to complete a game. What is new is the sophisticated targeting of a segment of the market and packaging up the product to meet the market’s needs. The sport of cricket has evolved to stay relevant. Marketing 101.

BBL is a product for families – for kids. It is full of action, it is bright and loud and it’s all over in three hours. It makes no apologies for catering to our ever decreasing attention spans.

And its influence on cricket more broadly is already evident. The recent Australia versus India one day series was the highest scoring ever – the way cricket is played is changing. 

Perhaps most significantly for the future of cricket is that T20 has given new momentum to the profile of women’s cricket in Australia. Attendances and audiences have far exceeded expectations, resulting in T20 “double headers” – Women’s BBL followed by the BBL. 

So now cricket finds itself in a tricky position where it is challenging the appeal of its own core product – the traditional long-form of the game, test cricket. Attendances over the Australia versus West Indies test series would suggest that there could be trouble ahead.

However, we have seen recent innovations to test cricket too. The series at the start of the summer against New Zealand saw the first ever day-night test match with a pink ball, and it was hailed as an outstanding success, both from the perspective of attendances at the Adelaide Oval and stellar TV ratings. 

Success in business – and international cricket is a multi-billion dollar business – is all about understanding your market, tailoring your offer but remaining true to the values of your brand. 

There are T20 leagues in all the major cricket playing nations. There is talk of Australia expanding out its BBL franchise to include a team from Asia. More than 190 million watch the Indian Premier League.

This all goes to show that being brave enough to innovate and disrupt really can pay off.

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