When Sachin Tendulkar scored the maiden double century in
ODI cricket, a cricket website crashed on account of number of users accessing
it. In the last decade, there has been a
newcomer on the block which has rivalled this cricketing website on all grounds.
The newcomer Cricbuzz has gained immense popularity amongst cricket fans and has
managed to onboard several exciting faces in its quest to become the world’s
best cricketing site.
Here are five more ideas on what could be explored by
Cricbuzz’s management team for the future.
1. Tie-ups with e-commerce companies / sports companies to sell cricketing merchandise
E-commerce has been steadily growing in India through the last
decade. A wide range of cricketing merchandise is available online on Amazon or
Flipkart but it requires a good amount of research / cricketing knowledge to
identify the right equipment to buy. This presents a window of opportunity for
a company like Cricbuzz to leverage its cricketing knowledge and present customizable
options to the consumers. In addition to this, official online cricket
merchandise is not the easiest to identify for the average consumer and this is
another reason why Cricbuzz would benefit the average user.
For example, if Cricbuzz were to tie-up with an amazon /
flipkart, they could engage in providing search options through their site. If
a user would like to purchase a cricketing kit for a kid between 5-10 years, Cricbuzz
could auto-populate such a kit by adding default options into the cart, after which
a user would have the ability to remove items which aren’t required.
Similarly, there could be other ways through which Cricbuzz
could provide customized purchase options for customers.
2. Identifying Cricket Correspondents through fan sections / blogs
Cricbuzz should be targeting at high engagement from users.
While there is a steady flow of comments on the Cricbuzz site, they should aim
at higher engagement. One of the ways which they could utilize is by providing
the chance for users to become writers. Cricbuzz could take inspiration from
the growth of Bleacher Report, which was acquired by Turner group. Bleacher
Report’s model is to let writers write stories of their own while providing an
editor to ensure the articles are error-free.
All stories written by an accepted writer are published and
can be shared with the writer’s friends / family, but only those which are good
are kept at the top of the reading links. This way the good view points of fans
/ active content remain at the top and gain maximum engagement while the
quality of the website is not pulled down. Also, the incentive which Cricbuzz
could offer is the chance to be a cricket correspondent for any series.
If one were to look at the “Careers” section of Cricbuzz, they
are consistently on the lookout for good cricket correspondents. This could be
an effective recruitment method while also greatly enhancing the engagement
from the viewer.
3. Cricket videos integration
Cricbuzz’s content such as Harsha Bhogle’s rating receives
around 200-300k views on an average while some of them are quite low. One way
of motivating interest is by providing the chance for users to see the videos
on youtube / official channels in a more structured manner. Youtube results for
cricket is still not as efficient as for other sports such as football. It is
still harder to search for a particular innings of a prominent batsman than for
a good goal by a footballer.
This presents an opportunity
for Cricbuzz to capture and integrate into their platform. For example, once
Cricbuzz has procured the rights for some videos, then they could add it as part
of the profile pages for the cricketers as well as in other articles. This video
database would also consistently increase along the years with viewers adding content.
4. Stat Comparisons
Most discussions between cricket fans ends up in them
looking at the various stats of different players. However, unfortunately, the
scenario as of now is that the user would have to open a whole range of tabs to
compare stats between two similar players. If one were to decide which among
Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer or Rishabh Pant deserves a spot in the ODI squad as
a batsman, then they would open three tabs and have to look on the important
details across tabs.
It would be a fabulous addition to the site for any cricket
user if the site allows the opportunity to compare between players in a manner
similar to how mobile specs are shown on Amazon / Flipkart. There is a dearth
of good stat based analysis on cricket and if Cricbuzz were to focus on articles
such as “Why Kohli vs. Tendulkar would not be fair comparison” and then use this
refined Stat compare tool to prove points, it could lead to a sharp spike in viewership.
5. Ticketing Information
One of the current problems which is faced by users is the procurement
of tickets for cricket games. Through cricbuzz’s knowledge of the user’s
location and interests, it is possible to keep the users informed of the ticketing
information for the games. Many cricket fans would like to be informed as to when
and where they could procure the tickets.
For example, if one were intending to buy a ticket for India’s
upcoming matches, they would have to go to BCCI’s site or look through a
plethora of online booking sites to identify this information. Instead, if Cricbuzz
could send a notification to the user’s phone as to dates / times of the games
along with a reminder on the day the ticket sales start (based on location),
then that would be the ideal scenario for any user.
