If you like cricket and are looking for a good way to waste a few hours this summer, Cricket Australia TV have just launched an official channel on YouTube. The channel promises behind the scenes interviews, match highlights and player interviews, although at the moment just seem to showcase a heap of cricket ads, which ironically I find infinitely more interesting than anything else they’re promising for the site. They’re also hoping for users to upload their own cricket clips to become part of the channel and in the future they want to add videos from their extensive archive as well.You can check out the channel here, and you can read the press release (which has all the thrills and spills of a test match in a few short paragraphs) below.
Cricket Australia TV joins You Tube
Cricket fans will be able to get their cricket fix from a specialised channel on YouTubeTM launched by Cricket Australia’s website www.cricket.com.au today.
The Cricket Australia TV channel on You Tube will be an extension of the existing CATV found at www.cricket.com.au and will contain player interviews, behind the scenes features and in the future, match highlights, from Australian cricket. Fans will also be able to upload their own cricket videos to become part of the channel.
Cricket Australia becomes the first major Australian team sport to work with YouTube in creating its own fan channel. CA is also keeping pace on a global stage in the way it communicates to fans, joining major sports and sports leagues such as the NBA, NHL, Italian Serie A and the ATP tour in having their own base within YouTube. These sites highlight the willingness of sports fans to use YouTube as an information and entertainment source.
According to Nielsen NetRatings, YouTube is the seventh largest internet destination in Australia, the number one video site and in November 2008 attracted 4 million unique visitors for the month. Globally, YouTube users watch hundreds of millions of videos everyday and upload hundreds of thousands of videos daily.
Cricket Australia will be using YouTube’s copyright management tools to identify its works on YouTube, allowing it to track, monetise or block its videos.
Cricket Australia General Manager of Media Rights Stephanie Beltrame sees the new channel as an innovative way to engage cricket fans around the world:
“In today’s media landscape it’s become crucial to meet the fan on their terms rather than leave it up to the fan to find you. YouTube is a website that is used by millions every day, so it makes sense that Cricket Australia is there in the YouTube space to find those millions, many of which are current or future cricket fans,” Beltrame said.“In the future we will also want to look at posting video from the extensive CA archive and in the process provide more quality cricket content on YouTube.”
Cricket Australia TV on YouTube currently contains exclusive interviews with players and behind the scenes footage from the Australian team, while fans can find the full library of CATV as well as international and interstate match highlights at www.cricket.com.au/catv .
The Cricket Australia TV YouTube Channel can be found at:
www.youtube.com.au/cricketaustraliatv