Brisbane Heat general manager Andrew McShea is big on family entertainment

YOU’LL rarely hear Brisbane Heat general manager Andrew McShea use the word cricket when talking about the franchise.

Brisbane Heat general manager Andrew McShea at the Gabba. Picture: AAP/Josh Woning

YOU’LL rarely hear Brisbane Heat general manager Andrew McShea use the word cricket when talking about the franchise.

And that’s a deliberate business decision, along with choosing the colour teal back when the team was founded, because it was the second most popular female colour.

“In eight years we’ve never used the word cricket in any form of marketing or advertising but we’ve talked about entertainment,” he said.

“The whole strategy has been about engaging a non-traditional cricket audience.

“Yes there’s a game of cricket, which is the contest at the heart of it all, but the match-day experience, the fireworks, the heroes, the family activities are key.”

Unlike other general managers Mr McShea, 36, can’t guarantee the performance of his team – this year the Brisbane Heat women won their Big Bash League while the men have had patchy results.

Yet, Mr McShea said, corporate boxes at the Gabba have been sold out and it has a long waiting list for Heat memberships which are deliberately capped at 3500.

Mr McShea, a QUT marketing graduate who cut his teeth in sales at alcohol giant Diageo before switching across to Goodlife Health Clubs, said the future of the Heat is also linked to reversing the declining cricket participation among kids.

He said there has been a 60 per cent increase in female cricket participation in Queensland in the last year.

“Like in any form of business it’s a great example of developing a strategy because there was a clear challenge and then implementing that strategy. And it’s 100 per cent working,” he said. “When we sit down with our commercial partners – the brands that are involved with us – there is direct alignment of wanting to get to that family market.”