Indian cricket authorities have clamped down on The Grade Cricketer podcast, compelling the show’s creators to take down every single video they have produced for this year’s Indian Premier League.
The Grade Cricketer’s daily show about the IPL, which has been called “The Big IPL Breakfast”, may now have to be renamed. The show’s hosts Sam Perry and Ian Higgins are due to travel to India for a series of live shows to coincide with the IPL later this week.
Sam Perry and Ian Higgins from The Grade Cricketer.Credit: Seven Network
The producers of the show, which is watched or listened to by an audience of more than a million people in Australia and around the world, received a legal letter from the BCCI and the IPL over the weekend, demanding the removal of photos and logos from hundreds of videos on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X.
According to a source with knowledge of confidential discussions, the legal notice was related to claims that Grade Cricketer IPL videos featured still photography shots from the tournament that the BCCI considered to be used for “commercial” rather than “editorial” purposes.
The Grade Cricketer videos have featured sponsorship placement for BigBasket, an Indian online grocery platform. Cricket boards have been known to make periodic crackdowns on the use of video footage on digital platforms, but the BCCI’s pursuit of still images is a new development.
Rather than risk a suspension or ban from any of their digital platforms, the show’s producers instead elected to take down all their video content from the IPL so far. Titles and graphics for this morning’s daily episode were devoid of any mention of the IPL or official team names.
“You may have noticed that every single video from our coverage of this year’s cricket tournament has been removed from YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, Instagram and X,” Perry told podcast listeners on Monday. “This is something we’ve done ourselves, it hasn’t been done to us, we have removed these videos.
“On Saturday evening Australian time we received a very polite legal letter about elements of our content from the cricket tournament we speak to you about pertaining specifically to this season. As a result we decided to take those videos down.
“It’s very important to note we’re going to continue to post coverage of the tournament, at the same cadence that we do. In fact, there’s going to be more in the next couple of weeks because we’re going to India. But our approach to content has been consistent for five years, we just now have a deeper understanding of what is and isn’t passing muster.”
Perry declined to add to what he had said on the podcast. The BCCI was contacted for comment.
All images taken of IPL matches and distributed globally by Getty and other companies carry a warning that they may only be used for “editorial use – strictly no commercial use”.
The Grade Cricketer has featured a host of interviews with prominent cricket figures over the years, including Australian captain Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, and also hosted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the outset of the Federal election campaign.
The show’s creators have invested significantly in growing their Indian audience in recent years, something Perry explained to this masthead in 2023.
“The actual take-off for us was after [Indian wicketkeeper-batter] Rishabh [Pant] smashed [Josh] Hazlewood down the ground at the Gabba [in 2021] and we had a fairly nascent YouTube channel at the time,” Perry said. “We recorded a reaction to that moment, which to date is our most viewed video. It starts with ‘Higgos’ swearing wildly, and continues on to us announcing the commencement of the Asian century, and Indians love that.
“When that video happened, we made a really conscious decision to engage as best we could with India, which involved us flying interstate to meet people who could help us learn about the Indian market and to learn about the way of doing things commercially in India.”
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