Hey folks - Joe here - welcome to Edition 68 of The SEG3 Report.

Today’s instalment spotlights Lancashire Cricket Club’s animated series launch, and the opportunity for sports brands to build new entertainment IP that can attract younger audiences.

Also covered: MrBeast’s Feastables partners with Formula E, and why major creators are investing in sports to grow their brands + Google’s launch of an entertainment division, and their production strategy to win hearts and minds.

Let’s dive in!

Contents: Edition #68

• Lancashire Cricket launches animated series

• MrBeast's Feastables partners with Formula E

• Google launches entertainment division

Lancashire Cricket launches animated series

Lancashire Cricket has unveiled Lanky & Friends, a three-part animated series aimed at engaging younger audiences with the sport. The series features the club's mascot, Lanky the Giraffe, and his companions Zippy, Willow, and Stumps, as they explore aspects of cricket such as the Roses rivalry and the rules of T20 cricket. Notable figures like David 'Bumble' Lloyd and Ben Cajee provide narration. Produced by MC2, the series is part of the club's Red Rose Together initiative, celebrating its 160th anniversary and promoting inclusivity in cricket.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: Animation could be a powerful way to introduce cricket to younger audiences. While it won’t fix retention issues with teens, it can help to build early fandom and grow participation. With storytelling increasingly key in sport, this mirrors similar moves like the PGA’s animated project, and shows the necessity of testing new formats and platforms as a way to attract new fans. If successful, it could open new doors for fan growth and commercial opportunities - but building audience around new IP is no easy feat.

In full: Growing up, cricket was not my sport (it still isn’t) - yet, I knew all about it thanks to Brian Lara Cricket. An iconic game by the way!

It introduced me to the sport and the rules; the variety of ways to participate (batting, bowling, all-rounders), the ways you can score, the different formats of the game, etc. It was a lot of fun (even if Shane Warne was impossible to bat against).

It was my entry point to cricket, and considering I ended up playing for one or two summers when I was younger, it was a contributor to the sport gaining a new participant.

And although this from Lancashire Cricket comes in a different format and medium, it has the same objective: to help youth audience begin to understand the sport in an accessible and entertaining way.

As above, the series follows Lanky the Giraffe and his friends Zippy, Willow, and Stumps, as they explain Lancashire’s rivalries all the way to the basics of T20 cricket. It sounds great for a young audience - as long as they can make the series feel like an adventure through cricketing history and rules, rather than a lesson.

And it’s a move that feels desperately needed - with cricket having slipped to 19th in the EY Sports Engagement Index, down 5 spots when it comes to Gen Z’s engagement vs all age-groups engagement.

This signals two things:

1. They’re losing participants once they get to their late teens. This animated series will certainly not solve that problem.

2. What it will contribute to solving however is how the sport attracts a Gen A audience. The series can provide a new pathway for them to learn about the sport, get interested and then participate.

So how can you build that fandom early, and keep participants involved in the ecosystem?

Well, animation could definitely be the right format for building early intrigue and fandom. It has proven to be a powerhouse in engaging younger audiences, with eight out of the top ten highest-grossing kids’ films of all time being animated, showing just how effective the format is in connecting with younger demographics.

And as for keeping participants involved in the ecosystem, there have been multiple attempts to rejuvenate the format and sport for broader audiences (namely, The Hundred), which saw success in attracting new audiences, with the inaugural year seeing 60% of the TV audience & over 50% of stadium-goers being complete newbies. The retention of this audience across the year to other formats of cricket, or to participating in the sport, is however likely a small percentage.

That aside, what the success of the new format does show is the appetite for reimagined formats that meet audiences where they are. If The Hundred can pull in young families, women and first-time viewers with a focus on entertainment and storytelling, why can’t an animated series do the same to attract new audiences?

And there’s precedent for it.

As the longer term readers will know from Edition #49, the PGA of America & dentsu are also teaming up with producer John Cohen (the man behind Despicable Me and The Angry Birds Movie) to create an animated franchise that will centre on making golf more relatable and a broader part of pop culture.

My take?

So, well done to Lancashire for being proactive in trying to build fandom with the next-generation - I hope Lanky & Friends will be an entry point into cricket just like Brian Lara Cricket was for me.

MrBeast's Feastables partners with Formula E

Formula E has entered a multi-season partnership with Feastables, MrBeast’s snacking company. Under the agreement, Feastables becomes the official snacking provider of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, and will include product sampling at races, branding and content activations, which started this past weekend at the 2025 Hankook Berlin E-Prix.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: MrBeast’s partnership with Formula E isn’t just about visibility (he doesn’t need this), it’s about storytelling. As content remains the engine of creators businesses, sport offers diverse, emotionally resonant material to fuel it. For sports brands, the key to engaging creators and brands is asking: what stories can we help them tell that they couldn’t tell on their own?

In full: Now it makes sense why MrBeast was in the Formula E car a few weeks back…

But what value does someone like MrBeast see in sponsorship of Formula E for Feastables? He’s already one of the most influential creators out there, with an incredible reach and following. So what’s the reason?

It’s again about storytelling opportunities.

With this partnership, MrBeast is able to create deeper, more immersive narratives that aren’t just focused commerce, but allows him & the Feastables team to weave the brand into a larger story around sustainability, and using motorsport as the vehicle (sorry!) to make it feel authentic to his audience.

And MrBeast isn’t alone at using sport to help grow brands within their creator portfolio.
KSI and Logan Paul’s PRIME has major partnerships with Arsenal, WWE, LA Dodgers and many many more high-profile brands and athletes. SEG3 London alumni Charles Kerr also did a deep dive on this strategy a couple of years back 👇

For these creators building out their portfolios, content is, and always will remain, the core engine of their entire business (you could even say once they hit at a certain level, it’s a loss-leader to support and promote other parts of their empire). But although that’s the case, there needs to be a strategy behind the content, with a focus on finding authentic connections to their audience.

And that’s where sports come in.

Sports provides rich storytelling opportunities that creators can tap into, whether it’s through the passion of a live match, the rivalries that have been built over time, or the sustainability message that Formula E so strongly promotes. Sports give them endless material to fuel their content, which in turn fuels their brands.

So for sports brands looking to engage with creators or brands, the starting thought should always be:

What stories can I help them to tell authentically that they can’t on their own?

Google launches entertainment division

Google has introduced a new film and television production initiative named 100 Zeros, in partnership with Range Media Partners. This multiyear venture aims to fund and co-produce projects that portray technology in a positive light, focusing on themes like artificial intelligence and spatial computing. Unlike previous efforts such as YouTube Originals, 100 Zeros will distribute content through traditional studios and streaming platforms like Netflix, rather than YouTube. The initiative's first projects include the films Sweetwater and LUCID, set to release later in 2025.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: Unlike its usual YouTube-first approach, Google’s new studio is producing content for major studios and streamers like Netflix to try and influence perception at scale. In a crowded AI market where tech offerings are similar, consumer trust may be the key differentiator, making storytelling a crucially important tool.

In full: Google are diving into entertainment with 100 Zeros - their new production studio that’s all about using content to introduce (or reframe the narrative around) AI and spatial computing to the general public.

Google already own the majority of the UGC content space with YouTube, so they understand the power of entertainment in building connection. But this time, they’re not relying on YouTube for distribution - instead the end game is to distribute this content to major studios and streaming platforms like Netflix to reach the largest audience as possible.

Which is smart if your objective is to shape perceptions. In the current AI arms race between tech giants - where most consumer facing offerings are somewhat similar - the real differentiator may not be who has the best technology or service, but more who earns the most consumer trust.

So will we see the other big tech giants who intersect with entertainment already (i.e. Microsoft) follow suit, and what will the challengers (like OpenAI) do in response to shape public opinion?

It certainly seems like entertainment is going to be a core piece of the puzzle in the AI (and wider tech) battle, so a dedicated content arm that helps consumers see how emerging tech and products can fit into everyday life feels like a very smart move.

In other news this week…

• Adobe becomes ‘Official Creativity & Digital Fan Experience’ partner of The Premier League: read here.

• PUMA partners with DressX for Roblox experience: read here.

• Wimbledon Tennis Showdown passed 20M visits on Roblox: read here.

• Bud Light partners with Netflix’s ‘Quarterback’ series: read here.

• M&A in Roblox ecosystem accelerates: read here.

• Genies partners with Unity to build visual layer for LLMs: read here.

• Weetos make first move into games: read here.

• Premier League player, VR game built alongside Rezzil, is now live: read here.

• Pryor Cashman release guide to Film & TV profit participation structures: read here.

• PSG & Talon Esports renew League of Legends partnership; add Qatar Airways as sponsor: read here.

• Veloce Media Group acquires majority stake in Lando Norris’ Quadrant: read here.

• Lamborghini enters Wilder World with Temerario drop: read here.

• The Premier League is recruiting for a Gaming Executive: see here.

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now folks - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report and if you found it of interest, please do consider sharing with a friend!