Cricket was seen as “pale, male, and frail.” Test cricket was played all in whites and went for 5 days, often with no winner being declared. The sport needed to attract a younger, more diverse audience to once again thrive.
Smash the old stereotypes of cricket to bits with an electric, hyper-coloured, CGI-heavy visual feast for the eyes.
Purists hated the commercial and its accompanying technicolour poster campaign. But it generated the highest ever ratings for any show on pay-TV in Australia. Crowds were 18% higher than projected. And it became the fastest growing sports competition in the land.
It also helped the fledgling league move from Pay TV to Commercial TV, where it is now a huge rating staple of summer sport.