Sky Sports and the ECB target 100 communities with grassroots cricket initiative

Sky Sports has partnered with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to launch Dynamos Cricket Intros, a new multi-year initiative that champions inclusion, encouraging more children to take up the game of cricket regardless of gender, ability, or background.

With the ambition of reaching children who might not ordinarily have access to cricket for a variety of reasons, the 3-year investment will enable schools and community centres in underprivileged areas to provide courses for free.

Following the ECB’s launch of Dynamos Cricket, a new 8-week paid for countdown cricket course delivered in clubs and centres for 8 to 11-year-olds, Sky Sports and the ECB are proud to present Dynamos Cricket Intros, a free introductory initiative targeting 100 towns and cities across the UK.

Launching on 1st June, Dynamos Cricket Intros is designed to tackle existing barriers and inspire the next generation to pick up a bat and ball, particularly in urban areas, by introducing children to a simplified and more dynamic game of countdown cricket.

With a focus on accessibility and encouragement ahead of The Hundred competition this summer, the investment in the initiative is broken down into three main parts; recruitment and training, access to free courses and the creation of fun educational videos delivered by stars of the game.

The Dynamos Cricket Intros scheme will offer training to 300 new coaches, which will include coaching experience and mentoring support with all kit and equipment provided for free. Once trained, these activators will span 150 schools and 150 community centres across the UK ready to encourage more children to pick up a bat and ball this summer at no cost. Applications to take part in this new coach training scheme are open to people of all backgrounds from today via The Hundred Rising, a new programme of exciting opportunities to open cricket’s doors to new audiences this summer. Find out more here.

Finally, a series of fun and educational videos featuring England star Jofra Archer and Tammy Beaumont will be made available to all via the Sky Sports YouTube channel. The participation collection will introduce cricket to teachers, parents and children.

*Jonathan Licht, Managing Director of Sky Sports said: “At Sky Sports we believe all children should have the opportunity to play cricket regardless of gender, ability or background. As a long-standing partner of the ECB we have invested in Dynamos Cricket Intros to tackle head-on some of the biggest barriers to participation. We can’t wait to work in 100 communities across the UK this summer inspiring more and more children to start playing the game that has been at the heart of Sky Sports for decades.”

Nick Pryde, Director of Participation and Growth at the ECB said: “We are continuously grateful for the depth and breadth of our Sky Sports partnership. Their generous investment into creating Dynamos Cricket Intros is an incredible example of their dedication to growing the number of children playing cricket in this country and to making the game more inclusive and diverse. As we launch The Hundred this year, we are excited to join forces with Sky on this project to help break down barriers to entry and inspire cricket’s future generations. In addition to Dynamos Cricket Intros, the ECB is also helping existing clubs open up to newcomers during the summer holidays by providing funding to up to 2,000 clubs.”

The Hundred is an action-packed, unmissable, new 100-ball cricket competition created by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and set to kick off on 21st July 2021. By simplifying the format and creating a new never-before-seen type of cricket, The Hundred’s aim is to open up the game to everyone, everywhere, with the winning combination of world-class sport and entertainment.

The Hundred will offer equal prize money for the men’s and women’s competition and will be the first major UK team sporting competition in history to launch with a standalone women’s fixture. Committed to raising the profile of women's cricket, the first fixture of the competition is between Manchester Originals and Oval Invicibles on July 21st at the Kia Oval in London.

The Sky Sports Cricket channel will be rebranded Sky Sports The Hundred for the duration of the competition this summer and all the women’s and a significant number of men’s matches will be made available to all audiences via the Sky Sports YouTube channel.

If you would like to discover more about Dynamos and countdown cricket please click here.

*This quote has recently been updated due to changes in Sky Sports leadership

About Sky

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of Comcast Corporation. Across six countries, we connect our 24 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news, arts and to our own award-winning original content.

Our technology, including the market leading Sky Q, connects people to everything they love – with entertainment from Sky TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer and apps like Spotify, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Highbrow, Fiit, and more, in one place, easy. Our streaming service, NOW TV, brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service.

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Bulletproof and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, while Sky Arts, the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel, makes the arts accessible for everyone. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years alone.

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation. We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over the next three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice.