Destino Legends Sports and the Belgian Cricket Federation formally launched the EUT20 Belgium League in India through an event in Mumbai.

The event unveiled the league's franchise ownership group and the official jersey of all five city-based teams. 

The league is scheduled to be held between 6-14 June and will be broadcast on the Sony Sports Network in India. 

On the sidelines of the launch event, we caught up with Robin Chaudhary, league chairperson, and managing partner, Destino Legends Sports. 

Edited excerpts: 

Cricket in mainland Europe has historically relied on the South Asian diaspora. What is the long-term marketing strategy to convert a local, football-crazy Belgian into a cricket consumer? 

Everybody knows how football is the number one sport across Europe. However, we also know that cricket is the sport with the second most viewership all around the globe. 

In terms of the long-term strategy to bring more cricket fans into the country, we are organising  workshops for schools, colleges and the local clubs that exist.

Children who are coming to participate in these workshops are loving it, and it is a surety that more kids will join us in the future as well.

Can the sport become culturally relevant in the country? Are we seeing schools adopt it?

To add on to the workshops, we are getting cricket training centres at places where cricket as a platform does not exist. We are organising cricket nets and also putting up more turfs across the country.

EU T20 has made special boxes that we are distributing among kids at school and college levels. The main motive of these cricket boxes is to gather a certain keen interest and fascination among the kids and differentiate between cricket and football, since both have separate identities. With this, we are trying to make some more developments around cricket.

How are you pitching the EUT20 to local and global sponsors in terms of tangible ROI, and what innovative commercial formats are you offering beyond standard jersey logos and perimeter boards?

We are building fan clubs and fan zones, as we have seen in other big sporting leagues. We are making considerable efforts to bring more sponsors to the league.

We’ll have LED parameters, on ground branding, curated pavilions and zones especially for the sponsors. 

Europe is an extremely vast market with a notable mention of a plethora of South Asian players who play in this region. However, the lack of proper platforms has compelled them to work a job in the morning and then play cricket in the evening. This includes players from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even India. We all know how aggressive we as Asians are about cricket and how the sport runs in our blood. Now that they are getting a platform, cricket is growing at a tremendous pace, and people are showering all the love to the game.

Taking this forward, the local boys who do not know about the concept of this sport are now looking forward to cricket and enjoying it too. There are local cricket leagues being conducted, and the quality of both the leagues and cricket have been improving. The EUT20 league is a very big platform for the players to grow and show the entire world that if someone can bowl at a fast pace of 140-145 km/hour, then you never know that their life might actually change and they might be picked up by an IPL team or any other big cricketing franchise.

The first season will be held for around 10 days in June. Does a 10-day burst make sustained brand storytelling challenging for advertising? 

The backing provided by ICC (International Cricket Council) and the BCF (Belgium Cricket Federation) has helped EUT20 and has also built confidence among the people. Since it is backed by such cricket bodies, people love to come and invest in such leagues. 

What is EUT20's broadcast and digital streaming strategy to ensure cut-through?

EUT20 Belgium will be working with GBS (Global Broadcast Service), which has been in the market for the last 20 years. We are already going into the league with a 24-camera set-up, which is actually a very big number from a production standpoint. Sony Sports is one of our broadcast mediums, and we are in talks with several OTT platforms too.

We will be going live in 80 different countries. There is nothing to think about or to give a second thought because we have GBS with us, which is a very professional entity and has established its name over the years with the likes of IPL (Indian Premier League) and other big franchise leagues broadcasting across the world.

When the core draw of the teams relies so heavily on international marquee players, how are your grassroots marketing efforts engineering genuine, city-level loyalty so that a fan in Antwerp actually cares about beating Brussels?

It is absolutely certain that the star power to the league will be brought by the international players. However, at the same time, the Belgians have gotten a chance to showcase their performance to the world via this cricketing platform. The league is not just being conducted for the sake of getting it done with it for 10 days and then wrapping it up.

There has been a lot of research that has gone into this. Mark Boucher (former South African cricketer) is one of the team coaches. Jonathan Trott is another name associated with the sport. We all know what he has done to Afghanistan cricket to be where it is today. Even Kiran More, who is the one behind scouting all the talents for the Mumbai Indians, is a part of the league, and his presence will again be beneficial. The experience and mentorship that such stalwarts will give to the local Belgium players will automatically help them grow and assure them with a high degree of confidence.