Why former England cricketer Tymal Mills is on OnlyFans: ‘You've got to put yourself out there'
'Just to be a thousand per cent clear,' says the first cricketer to link up with a website better known for pornography than sporting prowess, 'there will be no glamour shots. This is all about pure cricket and lifestyle material. It's uncharted territory but it's something I'm really excited about.'
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Mills is certainly taking a step into the unknown by joining a subscription service that, until now, has been better known for the sexual exploits of Bonnie Blue or even the opportunity to pay to look at pictures of Lily Allen's feet.
But OnlyFans claims there are as many professional athletes as porn stars on the platform, with tennis player Nick Kyrgios perhaps the most famous. Now it is moving into team sports, with the Sussex left-arm fast bowler their cricketing pioneer.
'There's no hiding from the fact they are best known for porn,' Mills tells The Athletic, 'but what I'll be doing will be far from that. Your mind does go to one place when you hear about OnlyFans initially, but when you lift the lid and speak to them and understand where they want to go and what the potential is, it really is exciting.
'Like any company, they want to grow, and sport is a huge growth area all around the world, with different markets and demographics. I didn't realise how big the company was until I started speaking to them and doing my own research.
'Now it's about getting in there and being brave and, like everything, I want to do this as best I can. I'll jump in with two feet and really try to add value.'
Mills, 32, has long held an active interest in the media. He was taking a degree in sports journalism at the University of East London when he was offered his first professional contract with Essex.
Since then, he has gained considerable broadcasting experience with the BBC, Sky Sports and TalkSPORT radio and, after securing a £1.4million contract to play in the Indian Premier league in 2017 with Royal Challengers Bangalore, took the unusual step of writing his own columns for a national newspaper rather than using one of their journalists as a ghost writer.
He also made sure he gave all the money he earned from those columns to a charity in the name of his Sussex team-mate Matt Hobden, who tragically died the previous year.
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Now he wants to broaden his social-media horizons. 'I'm going to try to push the envelope and do stuff that hasn't been done before,' Mills says, 'but also be guided by what people want. That's the beauty of it. You can have that direct contact with fans and people who want to hear from you.
'Players speak before and after games in the media but it's often manicured, generic stuff. I can use this platform to talk about what I'm thinking and use footage and images to illustrate the good and bad of life as a cricketer.
'You watch cricket games on TV (as an ordinary fan) and form opinions but you don't always know what's going on behind the scenes, the niggles players are carrying, what things they are going through. I'll try to give a bit of context to all that.'
Mills will also try to develop relationships with those who subscribe to his pages.
'I can host mass live streams that people can join and ask questions, and there's also the ability to have one-on-one conversations where you can exchange messages, video chats and catch-ups with people on how their cricket is going. It's multi-faceted,' he says. 'There will be a bit of trial and error, but we will learn as we go.'
So, how much will this all cost?
'We're still thrashing that out, but to subscribe will be free and then you will have to pay for certain pieces of content,' says Mills.
'I'm not looking to get rich off the back of the platform. People won't be asked to break the bank by paying high charges. I'm not looking to price people out. I'm going to try to find that balance when putting a value to it, and hopefully what I'm doing will be worth people's consideration.'
Mills certainly has plenty of experience in cricket to lean on.
He became one of the fastest bowlers in English cricket with Essex before joining Sussex in 2014 but serious injuries forced him to retire from the longest forms of the game.
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That did not prevent him emerging as one of the most successful Twenty20 specialists on the franchise circuit while playing in 16 short-form internationals for England and going to two World Cups in that format of the game. Now he will spearhead Southampton-based Southern Brave's challenge in this year's edition of the Hundred.
'It's a big season in the Hundred, because there's a lot of new investment in the teams and everything could change next season,' says Mills. 'This is the fifth season of the competition and it has been awesome. All the players have loved playing in it and the crowds have been really good. Now we all want to impress the new owners this year.'
But Mills does not think he will be adding to those 16 England caps.
'That ship might have sailed,' he says. 'I haven't played for England as much as I would have liked. I was injured a lot when I was younger and probably missed out on opportunities but the last few years I've stayed really fit and played a lot of games and done really well.
'It doesn't feel like I'm overly close to the setup. I'm at peace with that, and I'm just trying to focus on doing the best I can in every tournament I play in. If I was called up for anything, that would be brilliant.'
Whatever happens to Mills now will be there to see on OnlyFans.
'You can be a bit more vulnerable on this platform, knowing not everybody is going to see it,' he adds. 'The only people who will see it are those who really want to and are going out of their way to pay for it. So there's that trade-off. I'm not going to be putting content on there that you can see on Instagram, because there's no point in that or value to it.
'You've got to be brave sometimes and put yourself out there. I just don't want to be safe. I want to give myself the best chance to be as successful as I can for a long time.
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'Cricket will eventually stop. I'm 32 now, soon to be 33 (August 12), and hopefully I'll play for another few years and then make that transition into the next part of my life.
'Whatever I do, I want to be successful at it, and now I'm doing OnlyFans, I'm not going to go at it halfheartedly. I want to give it a really good go.'
For more cricket, follow Global Sports on The Athletic app via the Discover tab
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