How Hailsham Cricket Club is using its Grassroot Media screens to improve club communication, attract new local sponsors and generate £1,400 in additional income.
We spend a lot of time at Grassroot Media talking about advertising campaigns and the audiences that can be reached inside grassroots sports clubs.
But behind every screen and every poster is an independent sports club, usually powered by volunteers, with its own community, challenges, successes and ideas.
So we thought it was time to turn the camera around. For the first in our new Club Spotlight series, Mat Court sat down with Rob Wilkinson, Director of Cricket at Hailsham Cricket Club, to talk about the club, the growth of women and girls’ cricket, life inside a grassroots sports organisation and how Hailsham has made its Grassroot Media screens part of the everyday running of the club.
A club Rob has helped shape for 13 years
Rob has been Director of Cricket at Hailsham for around 13 years, overseeing senior and junior cricket, sponsorship and social media.
It is clearly much more than an administrative role. As Rob explains in the interview, cricket and Hailsham Cricket Club are a huge passion for him, and one of the developments he is proudest of has been the growth of the club’s women and girls’ section.
Hailsham previously had women playing within its Saturday cricket structure, but not a dedicated team of their own. Today, Rob estimates that the club has around 20 to 25 women and girls across 2 teams.
For Rob, the impact goes beyond results on the pitch. He says the section has helped to round the club and brought a more family orientated atmosphere on Sundays, with players, children, partners and parents spending time together around the club.
It is a good example of something we see repeatedly across grassroots sport: these organisations are about far more than the matches taking place on the pitch. They are social spaces and community hubs.
2 screens doing 2 very different jobs
Hailsham has 2 Grassroot Media screens in its main clubhouse, and what makes the club particularly interesting is that it deliberately uses them differently.
One focuses predominantly on promotional content. That can include:
- Cricket Week
- End of season events
- Quiz nights
- Coaching
- Club kit
- Fixtures
- Other events and opportunities
The second has developed into something much closer to a digital information board. It carries practical information members may need, including match fees, club contacts, captains, safeguarding information and other important notices.
Before the screens, much of that information lived on traditional noticeboards. Rob describes the familiar problem: sheets of paper getting knocked down, notices becoming untidy and important information sitting somewhere people simply did not look.
The screens have changed that behaviour. Rather than information sitting passively on a wall, members have begun actively looking at the screens when they need something.
Rob jokes that, after being asked the same questions repeatedly over a weekend, he can now simply ask: “Have you looked at the board?”
Keeping it simple
One of the principles behind the Grassroot Media screen model is that clubs should not need to become digital signage experts.
Hailsham is a good example of that working in practice. When Rob wants something changed, he normally sends the artwork or information to Grassroot Media on WhatsApp and we update the screens remotely.
Rob describes the process as straightforward and says that changes will commonly be made within hours or, where necessary, by the following day. That speed matters particularly where Hailsham is using its screens to support its own sponsors.
If a local business has paid the club to appear on the screen, the club needs to know its advertising will actually appear. For Rob, that responsiveness has become one of the major strengths of the service.
The result we weren’t expecting: £1,400 for the club
This was probably the most interesting part of our conversation.
Grassroot Media provides the screens and manages the system without charging the club. National advertising funds the network, while the club receives the majority of the airtime for its own use.
And that airtime belongs to the club. It can promote fixtures, events and club information, but clubs can also sell some of their own airtime to local businesses and keep the money they generate.
Rob told us that 7 local sponsors are currently advertising through the screens, generating £1,400 for the club. Perhaps even more interestingly, 3 of those businesses were completely new sponsors.
One local business owner had recently moved into the area, visited the club, saw the screens and asked how he could get involved. That relationship subsequently developed into support for the club.
For a grassroots organisation, £1,400 is meaningful money. As Rob puts it, that can help fund equipment such as a new bowling machine or support any number of other things the club needs. And importantly, Grassroot Media does not take a share of the advertising income Hailsham generates through its own allocation of screen time.
“I think it’s a game changer.”
Rob WilkinsonDirector of Cricket, Hailsham Cricket Club
A shared clubhouse means a wider community
The screens are not only being seen by Hailsham cricketers. Rob explains that cricket, hockey, netball and a running club all use the site as a base, representing more than 1,000 members across the 4 organisations.
That means club communication and relevant advertising are being seen within a busy community environment throughout the year rather than simply during a single cricket match.
It also helps explain why the screens have become useful to local sponsors. They are not buying an abstract number of online impressions. They are appearing inside a place used repeatedly by local people who have a genuine connection to the clubs based there.
More than an advertising network
When we asked Rob what he would say to another sports club considering one of the screens, his answer was immediate. Later in the conversation he went even further, saying that if the screens disappeared now they would leave a significant hole in how the club communicates and promotes itself.
That is exactly what we hoped would happen when we developed the model. The national advertising is important because it pays for the network. But for us, the system works properly when the club itself values the screen too.
Because if the club values it, it uses it. And if it uses it, members look at it. That ultimately creates a better environment for everyone, including the advertisers funding it.
Hailsham is the first club we have featured in this new series, but it will not be the last. Grassroot Media works with grassroots football, rugby, cricket, bowls and other sports clubs around the UK. Each one is different. Club Spotlight gives us an opportunity to meet some of the people behind them, understand what is happening inside grassroots sport and share ideas that other clubs may be able to learn from.
For clubs
Want a screen for your club?
Selected clubs receive the screen and management without charge, funded through national advertising, while keeping the majority of airtime for their own notices, events, sponsors and local advertising.
For advertisers
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Grassroot Media helps advertisers reach players, members, families and volunteers through a UK network of digital screens and poster sites inside trusted grassroots sports environments.
Watch the full conversation on YouTube.