Big Bash League: Unpacking the magic of Perth Scorchers with the pioneers of the club’s unprecedented success

Fifteen seasons. Eight finals. Five titles and another one so close Cooper Connolly can reach out and catch it. Record crowds and free-to-air eyeballs, merchandise paraded so loudly and parochially that Cricket Australia wants to uncork the “secret” formula. The Perth Scorchers are an Australian sporting phenomenon. Cue summer and the brand is everywhere, making it the biggest orange “cult” in WA since Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s failed push in the 1980s. Just last Saturday, a record home-and-away crowd of 48,608 watched Kiwi import Finn Allen blast 69 off 39 balls at Optus Stadium to lock in top spot and Tuesday night’s home qualifier final. The 53,886 who turned up for the 2022-23 decider at the same venue remains the biggest crowd for a final while the team has averaged crowds of more than 35,000 three years in a row. No other franchise has come close. Captain Ashton Turner, a member of the Scorchers squad in every season except the first, said the size and energy of home crowds was “not lost on us” and he advised his players to spent a moment to look around at the crowd on Tuesday night. “I was at a playground with my kids this morning and people were wishing me good luck, at local cafes and walking down the street, there really is a sense that the whole city’s got behind our cricket team and it’s a really nice feeling,” he said. “We have franchise cricket, we have international cricket, club cricket, but to be able to play domestic cricket in front of 50,000 people, it’s pretty cool,” he said. The Scorchers have relied on home-grown talent – think Turner, Mitch and Shaun Marsh, Brad Hogg, Jason Behrendorff, Ashton Agar and AJ Tye – and quality imports – Yasir Arafat, Colin Munro, Laurie Evans, David Willey and Liam Livingstone - rather than superstars. West Indies great Chris Gayle, aka “Universe Boss”, played two seasons of T20 with the WA team when it was the Warriors but the Scorchers did not pursue him for BBL I in 2011-12. He instead signed with Sydney Thunder, a franchise that has won just one title and been six-time wooden spooners. Former Australian women’s wicketkeeper Christina Matthews, who was appointed WACA CEO towards the end of the first season of Big Bash, said the Scorchers dared to do it their own, home-grown way from the start. “In the pure sense is at the start of the Big Bash League, it was all about entertainment, entertainment, entertainment and the cricket will look after itself,” she said. “Whereas at the Scorchers, they’ve evenly balanced both the on-field and off-field. When people were rushing to get marquee players for promotion the Scorchers always took the view that we need a good competitive side and people who will fit in to the team not be outliers from the team. “The Scorchers never really went after those really big name players. Western Australia tried it with Chris Gayle before the BBL started and I think that probably sent them off in a different direction. “It showed them that when you get a big name player they can take all of the oxygen out of the room. “So from then on it’s been how do we build a really competitive team and provide the best fan experience, rather than one or the other. “For the 15 years it’s been team-first and how do we make sure the group on the field are about that team and nothing else. “And wherever possible the Scorchers don’t get part-time players, they do everything they can to get players who will be there all year and get embedded in the culture of the Scorchers.” Scorchers general manager Jess Keily said there were other points of difference. “We are really leaning into this branding of the Wild West this year. It’s about coming over. It’s hard. It’s hot. It’s a long trip over here. People don’t want to come here. It’s gonna be 38-39C tomorrow night and so many of the players have said we love playing in that because no one else can handle it. It’s tough to come over here and face us but we love it,” she said. Matthews said there had always been a big emphasis on “family and inclusion”. “Everybody is embraced. Players, staff, their whole family is embraced in the Scorchers’ ethos,” she said. “The fact that we’ve said everybody’s welcome and there’s no real hierarchy within the club, that’s been a really important part.’ Two of the Scorchers championships were won at the WACA Ground, one at Optus and two at neutral venues - in Canberra and Melbourne, during a World Cup cycle and COVID. Matthews said the shift to the 60,000-capacity Optus Stadium from the WACA, which held a maximum 24,500, for the 2017-18 season was a “huge risk”. “We had an absolute guaranteed full house every time we played at the WACA,” she said. “High-performance staff were nervous because they knew how to play at the WACA and they had to learn a different way to play at Optus Stadium because of the shape and so forth. “So going there and having success there – we have won two titles since we shifted to Optus (including a win at Docklands in Melbourne) and are in line for a third hopefully - making that transition and creating greater opportunity for fans, players and the business was something I was really proud of.” Alistair Dobson general manager of Big bash Leagues described the Scorchers’ bubble as “phenomenal”. “It talks to the passion of the fans and their willingness to invest their time and money and energy into supporting the Scorchers and all of our data says that they’re higher selling and the most popular club amongst their fans,” he said. Former Australian Test opener Justin Langer who coached the Scorchers for six seasons for two wins, two runners-up and two thirds, said continuity in staff, from the CEO, captain and coach to the high-performance staff, was key, as was signing more local talent than any other franchise. “Don’t underestimate having access to those players 12 months of the year,” he said. The fan base, Langer said, was a genuine “us versus them” mentality. “We see it in the mining industry, we see it in the footy, we see it in the cricket,” he said. “It’s real and it’s actually a great strength of ours. “I sat in the crowd last Saturday night. First time I’d done that, been to a game not as a player, coach or commentator, just as a fan and it was unbelievable.” The Scorchers’ continued success on and off the field comes at a time when Cricket Australia is trying to convince the state bodies and the players’ association to open up the eight BBL sides to investment from wealthy global elites, including franchise owners from the Indian Premier League, the UK’s Hundred, South Africa and the UAE. “All the conversations happening around the leadership of the league and the states at the moment are around who we sell to and how much we sell,” Keily said. “We’ve had a lot of internal discussions about how important the Perth Scorchers brand is to the fan base. “We need to be really selective of who we sell to because we’re not a broken product. There are some clubs in the league that are struggling to get attendance at times and viewership. But that not the Perth Scorchers. “We are at the top. All our metrics from broadcast numbers to sponsorship to attendance has just gone up year on year for the past four seasons. “So it’s about finding an owner who will buy into that and to buy into the Perth Scorchers brand. And that we are parochial and local. “If you were to come in and change that to, you know, a Scorchers Super Giants, for example, you are giving up something that has been built up and proving to be a successful model and a successful fan base year on year over the last 15 years.” Matthews said it was the Scorchers’ “biggest challenge”. “Anybody you are talking to about ownership need to understand why the team is successful,” she said. “The Scorchers would be a pretty attractive proposition to any owner. They are commercially the most successful team and they have the advantage of two first-class grounds that they operate out of - one for training and playing for women’s and one for training for the men’s and playing at Optus. “We know the majority of owners come from India so our time zone and our distance to India is really good. “There’s a lot of positives about that and it’s understanding and really driving what you need and if you don’t get the price that you think you’re worth how do you go about not selling it?” Keily revealed even the sport’s national governing body was trying to mimic their raging success. “That shows that there is a very big and very passionate crowd that keep coming week by week, year by year and it is not dependent on just the winning … although we have had a lot of success on the field,” she said. “We lead the Big Bash in merchandise sales. They (Cricket Australia) understand how passionate the Perth Scorchers fan base are and are trying to convert that to international cricket. “You walk around Perth in summer and you see orange Scorchers gear everywhere, you don’t see those Australian cricket shirts.” Bumper crowds, according to Keily, were equal parts parochialism and planning. “The ability to have a fixture year on year is so massive because it becomes a cultural family habit,” she said. “Boxing Day, we’ve had that fixture for 10 years now and it’s such a massive part of West Australians’ calendar. We are building up the opening match of the season now too. “Then it comes back to sitting back and actually feeling and reacting to what the crowd wants and what punters like, listening to what they’re saying on socials. “We do different themes for each round – Pride Round, First Nations Round, Wild West Round – so there’s a point of difference in that it feels a bit exciting each time. “But music and fans are my strategy and have been for a long time. It’s about focusing on those little things, getting them right and then we dress it up with the fireworks and the celebrities and so on but you’ve got to nail music and fans and then the rest comes. “I sit down with the DJ quite often and talk about how we want to capture this vibe and it is old school remakes. We want everyone from the 45-year-olds to the 20-year-olds going, ‘Oh yeah I know this, this is from my era’.” “A couple of years ago, I sat there in level five and it was the first time we played Sweet Caroline and the crowd went nuts. “Organically the guys who do the fireworks started doing the flames in beat to it. All of a sudden everyone started singing it and I messaged the event guys and said ‘Do it again next over’. “All those little touch points that we do are about engaging the crowd and moving with the crowd to really amplify that experience. “The players will tell you how much the crowd affects them. It has a huge impact on them, they get so buzzed by it.”