Manoj Badale Talks Rajasthan Royals And UK Growth

With the innovative but disruptive Hundred just around the corner, the impending return of live cricket on free-to-air TV and both the ICC Cricket World Cup Final (which drew a combined peak audience of 8.3m on both Sky Sports and Channel 4 this year, hitting its zenith during the famous Super Over) and a dramatic Ashes series dominating the summer, interest in English cricket is at an all time high. 

But as the incredible summer comes to an end and the dust begins to settle, new entities are emerging aiming to grab a piece of the English cricket pie.

Indian franchise T20 side Rajasthan Royals, who sit at the forefront of bringing cricket into a new era, are now looking outside the ever-lucrative Indian market to the UK in a quest for commercial growth and a new fanbase. After opening an academy at Cobham in Surrey, the Jaipur-based outfit are looking to grow further in Britain to expand their reach beyond the sub-continent and into new markets.

Sport Industry Group talked to Manoj Badale, co-founder of the Rajasthan Royals to find out what’s next for the franchise as it looks to the UK for growth, and what’s next for cricket as it enters an exciting new era.

What are the Royals’ goals in the UK?

We want to become the UK’s IPL team. 

We hope to achieve this through our exceptionally talented and exciting English stars, (Ben) Stokes, Jofra (Archer) and (Jos) Buttler, our grassroots programmes and exclusive and engaging digital content. We will also soon have merchandise in the UK which will mean our fans can feel entirely part of the family.

Do you see the UK as a growth market for short form cricket in general?

Yes. The ECB is investing heavily in the development of cricket in this country and with The Hundred, their marketing spends will only increase further. We are looking to increase our touchpoints with the UK cricketing community and hence support the growth of the game.

How can the sport ensure it attracts a more diverse fan base and appeal to younger fans?

The first focus must be content. Creating deeply engaging digital content will attract and engage fans, particularly the youth of the country who like everything in bitesize, entertaining chunks. 

The next step is to make the event an exciting and fun experience for all individuals. This means a variety of activations, food stalls and ticket offerings that make these new fans want to come back again and again. Finally, we as a country need to continue to invest in grassroots programmes: we must engage these potential players and fans from an early age, so they are fans for life.

On the back of cricket’s success this summer in the UK, how can franchises and clubs take advantage of the international buzz?

The World Cup success is an opportunity that no club in England should miss. This is the chance for all of us to significantly increase participation in cricket, resulting in a new highly engaged generation of players and fans. 

We are lucky to have the super over stars in our team and will give our UK fans exclusive access to these players through some really fun digital content.

What are the Royals doing to boost the involvement of women and girls in cricket?

We are immensely passionate about growing women’s cricket. We launched the first Junior IPL girls team (we have two) which recently completed their first year as the Royal Sparks. This included high performance camps, development programmes, training with the women’s IPL teams and much more. 

We helped host the Women’s T20 challenge in Jaipur this year and will continue to invest time and money in growing the women’s game. It is also fantastic seeing many girls training at our UK academy in Cobham and we hope more will join soon.