Sixes cricket owner: Global expansion on cards but we won’t ditch London
When City foodies hear the names Andy Waugh and Calum Mackinnon it would only be natural to associate them with the now closed Mac & Wild restaurant, which once sat in Devonshire Square near Liverpool Street.
But the pair have gone left field; staying in the hospitality sector but offering a product entirely different to their former business.
Sixes as a brand began in 2020 amid the gloom of the Covid-19 pandemic, but as Waugh talks to City PM during what has been an incredible Ashes series, the cricket-themed venue has expanded not only to Manchester and Brighton but to the United States too.
Sixes clearing boundaries
And with a franchise model which could soon see openings in the likes of Australia and India, Sixes is a good news story for British entrepreneurship and the food and drink industry.
“We opened our first site in 2020, which is quite poetic with the format of Twenty20 cricket,” Waugh tells City PM
“It was probably one of the worst times, they only got seven days trading before locking down for six months.
“We’ve only got eight sites in the UK, all very different places. I like Brighton [their new opening, with outdoor nets] because it is a very different model, it is right on the beach front.”
Sixes combines the past time of drinking and eating with cricket nets, offering an interesting take on a night out. And much like its darts equivalent Flight Club, Sixes has taken a sport and created an entertainment space around it – and it’s not just happening here in the UK.
“We were obviously conscious about what was happening in the USA and we wanted to be open before MLC [Major League Cricket] started,” Waugh adds. “We’re very aware of the energy that’s there and the World Cup launching between them and the West Indies next year.
“But we would always want to operate in the UK, we can play on that Englishness and London is one of the main capitals in the world.
“We’re never going to neglect that, there’s a good strong business in the UK as well, there’s a good argument to be opening here. So we want to grow and we also want to grow the game of cricket as well.”
Looking beyond
But the company – which includes pacer Stuart Broad, England Test captain and bowler Jofra Archer among its investors through their group 4CAST – are looking far beyond the shores of the UK and the growing market of the US. Cricket is played around the
globe and it’s no secret that India has taken the sport and made it their own.
A captive audience of over one billion people combined with a strong Test team and globally watched franchise league draws commercial eyes to the subcontinent.
“We are looking to open more sites in the US but globally we’ve had 400 franchise opportunities around the world,” Waugh says. “So we have signed on India [Delhi and Mumbai] and South Africa, we have [other] partners that we have signed on and we’re looking for ones in Australia and New Zealand – basically anywhere that wants to have this kind of operation.”
And why are this duo, famed for their Michelin Guide level dining, succeeding here? Well take away the business itself and cricket in the UK, especially Test cricket, has become watchable again – it’s attractive.
Sixes is fascinating, because it’s taken the traditional image of consuming cricket – picture a local field, probably with some playing nets, and the sport taking on a supporting role to a social occasion – and commercialised it.
Surviving post-Covid has been a challenge in the hospitality industry, so seeing a couple of Brits thriving and trying to clear traditional cricketing boundaries offers a good news story for the rest of us.