Breaking Boundaries – 100 Balls, 1 Billion Dollars

Breaking Boundaries is a high-energy debate tackling the ultimate marketing dilemma: When is breaking something the only way to save it?

Rob Johnson, architect of The Hundred, and Adam Bullock of Multiple go head to head using cricket’s most disruptive format as a live case study. They’ll chart the journey from “IT’S NOT CRICKET” headlines and institutional resistance to a cultural phenomenon with 5.9 million new viewers and a billion-dollar valuation.

This isn’t just a sports story – it’s a masterclass in radical simplicity, culture-first branding and the commercial power of equality. Join us to extract universal lessons for any brand brave enough to challenge tradition, silence the sceptics and rewrite its own rules for the modern era.

• 1. When does protecting your heritage become a threat to your future? At what point does loyalty to a core audience tip into a ceiling on growth?
• 2. Can simplicity alone be a radical act? "If you can count to 100, you can follow the game." In a world of over-engineered brand architectures and complex comms strategies, The Hundred proves that ruthless simplification isn't dumbing down — it's the single most powerful tool for mass-audience acquisition.
• 3. Is equality a moral choice or a commercial strategy — and does the answer even matter? With 271,000 attending women's matches and double-headers redefining the event experience, The Hundred demonstrates that gender parity isn't a values statement bolted onto a brand — it is the brand strategy. The session asks: what's holding the rest of the industry back?