Clicky Ponting and the viral age of grassroots cricket livestreams
FrogBox livestream footage of Brian Devine’s apparent finger‑clicking at Saltburn Cricket Club went global last week, drawing commentary from figures including Piers Morgan and Mike Brearley. Rob Knee, chief executive of FrogBox, discussed the episode and the wider consequences of amateur-match streaming from Melbourne.
FrogBox supplies livestreaming kits to about 1,850 clubs, mainly in the UK and Australia, and partners with organisations including Cricket Australia, Cricket Scotland, Netherlands Cricket and the England and Wales Cricket Board. “Monday to Friday, people are sharing the content,” says Rob Knee, chief executive of the cricket livestreaming company FrogBox. Knee says FrogBox are expanding and the company has posted more than 3m cricket clips online while linking to live scoring data to power on‑screen graphics and automated highlights.
Clubs have used streamed footage to secure sponsorship and funding, and FrogBox emphasises the positives of preserving individual and team milestones. “We'd much rather see some outstanding catches, centuries and sixes being the cause of those viral moments,” Knee tells The Spin down the phone from Melbourne with the "Clicky Ponting" saga still rumbling. He highlighted how memorable incidents are kept for posterity: “When you are streaming over 1,000 games a weekend that is a potential quarter of a million highlights every single week that we are capturing.”
Knee described technical and consent arrangements surrounding streams, noting the company’s role and the responsibilities of clubs. “We’re the technology provider but we require the clubs, and we presume it happens, [to make sure] that everyone is aware that the match is being streamed,” he said, adding that “the cameras have got pretty good audio as well, so it’s making sure people know that they can be heard as well.” Clubs can set streams to be unlisted if they choose.
Knee framed FrogBox’s founding purpose around community and access rather than elite analytics, and cited reach across club sides as part of that aim. “Of course you get the odd player who gets given out and is immediately ripping off the pads and re‑watching their decision, but our founding principles were much more guided by building cricket communities and fan engagement. Certainly that was our angle. Other companies out there come from more of a high performance and analytics world but ours was always more about connection. That parents, family and friends who can’t be at the game can still feel part of it.” He also related a personal example of being filmed at club level: “I don’t play so much any more but certainly the local side I play for has FrogBox and I’ve been streamed doing some horrific things, getting out to very poor balls and all that type of stuff. It always gets a decent laugh around the place.”
Alongside the positives, the Saltburn episode prompted wider debate about public shaming and the shifting boundary between private and public moments on the field, with The Spin invoking Jon Ronson’s book So, You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. The story of Devine’s apparent hand gesture circulated internationally last week and provoked commentary beyond the cricket community, signalling the reputational risks that can attach to viral clips.
The expansion of amateur streaming sits beside broader tensions about cricket and social media at higher levels of the game. The Hundred’s attendances are reported to be down by about 18% compared with last year, while the England and Wales Cricket Board says social media "views" have risen by 75% in this year’s competition. Attempts to harness internet attention have stumbled at times — the freshly formed Hundred side Sunrisers Leeds deleted a video of their men’s team struggling with a new victory song, an adapted version of Marching on Together, which remains findable online.
In other recent media, Ben Stokes spoke at length on the For The Love Of Cricket podcast hosted by Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler, saying that it is English cricket that is rooted in a drinking culture rather than his old team having a booze problem.
FrogBox says its kits, with a recommended retail price of £2,380, sold out this year and the company is already taking pre‑orders for next season as it seeks to expand its reach across grassroots cricket.