This comment appeared as an aside in the Formula One discussion, replying on here to avoid dragging that off-topic:
I'm probably way behind everyone else, but I only found out fairly recently that most county championship matches, and quite a few T20 blast and one day cup matches, are streamed live on YouTube. The exceptions are mostly the higher profile matches that are live on Sky. The presentation is quite low key, but I generally prefer that to excessive excitability (e.g. Talksport 2 commentaries), and there's a graphic with current scores on screen so you can avoid the commentary entirely if you so wish. I've watched more "live" cricket on screen this summer than in any year since test matches left Channel 4.
Absolutely, this has been a massive plus for me since I don't live in the UK, so can't get Sky and only get over a couple of times a year to watch live.
The quality varies depending on investment, so Lancs TV is highly professional with multiple cameras controlled by an editing suite and a studio with guests - not quite up to Sky quality but certainly a professional TV presentation.
Others such as Derbyshire are much more basic but they too now use more than one camera and it is completely acceptable.
There is also a big myth that this is somehow free - well, it's free to watch but the counties make money from it from YouTube views and their own additional advertising and sponsorship.
I believe 1 million YouTube views earns around £5,000 to the creator, give or take a little.
You might think, "Where do a million views come from" but Lancashire are well aware of this and are ahead of the curve as they are targeting the Indian market - they even sent a broadcasting team out to India for a pre-season game and had the studio at Old Trafford up and running with guests in the early hours of the morning.
There is also something in India called FanCode which I believe streams at least some of this stuff in India and again you may wonder who would watch it but, a) this is India we are talking about and b) it is connected to some kind of immensely popular fantasy cricket competition.