Rob Moody (born 23 November 1977) is an Australian YouTuber and cricket enthusiast. He is known for his collection of old cricket footage.[2] His defunct YouTube channel titled Robelinda2 was one of the largest cricket archival channels in the world, possibly larger than that of the International Cricket Council.[3][4] He has been praised for his contributions to the growth of cricket.[5] He had more than a million subscribers[6][7] before his channel was terminated on 5 November 2023 after a series of copyright strikes.[8][9]
Career
Moody had recorded live cricket matches since the 1982–83 Australian cricket season, including the Ashes, at the age of five. Switching to DVDs from video tapes in the 1990s, he also converted them to hard disks.[10]
In the end, 300 videotapes, 25,000 DVDs and 60 hard drives amounted to 100 terabytes of footage.[11]
Moody created his first YouTube channel, robelinda, on 7 November 2006, later opening a new channel called robelinda2, and uploading numerous Australian and international cricket clips.[12] Many were from obscure matches not broadcast as television highlights. 90% of the views on his YouTube channel came from India.[13]
His videos began to come under scrutiny over possible copyright violations.[13] In March 2020, he received warnings from the International Cricket Council demanding that he delete the footage from any ICC event from 1992 onwards. They suggested that he delete just over 100 cricket videos, stating that they did not have any intention of closing his channel. On 16 June 2020, his cricket video library was temporarily shut down by Twitter, before Cricket Australia intervened.[14][15][16]
Moody's videos became more popular especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when international cricket was halted.[17][18] His YouTube channel grew by 200,000 subscribers and was viewed 249 million times during this period.[6] A social media campaign was launched by Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon from The Final Word podcast, demanding an Order of Australia honour for him in recognition of his services to cricket.[19]
On 5th November 2023, his YouTube account was terminated after a series of copyright strikes, described by Fox Sports as being of questionable validity.[20][21]
