Why I should not be starting a county cricket newsletter... but I am

No-one else wants to market the domestic game outside the T20 Blast

To be honest, I should not be doing this.

It should be someone’s (or some department’s) full-time job to promote county cricket in England. Let’s gloss over the details as to how this came to pass, it is a long, annoying story of arrogance, myopia and mismanagement.

But the facts are these:

• It’s 2021 and cricket is still England’s national sport

• Traditional county cricket is barely marketed, bar the T20s, and trust me I have been looking

• There is a certain tournament coming later this year that has been pushed, promoted and PR’d long before the first ball was set to be bowled, sucking up vast amounts of money

I wrote an article for the Cricket Paper at the end of last year about the issue and it seemed to hit a chord.

The domestic game is largely ignored by the mainstream media, though there are some stalwarts still trying to tell its story. Fans’ outlets have been filling the gap so how could I contribute in a different way?

That is where this newsletter comes in.

The aims are simple:

• Aggregate the best stories on county cricket

• Create community and audience for the benefit of the game

• Entertain, inform and amuse

This newsletter will:

• Be published weekly in the season (fortnightly outside)

• Be free, always

• Never allow your information to be misused

I am going to give it a year and see how it goes.

Wish me luck.

Sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue.

In the meantime, tell your friends!