While UK’s gamble pays off, SA shambles in the shadows
Awhistle-stop tour of England last week took in eight of the 18 first-class counties and provided a deep and personal look into the wellbeing of the sport in the country that gave birth to the sport of cricket. I spoke to players, coaches and directors of cricket at the richest and some of the more modest grounds.
For a nation that has a 150-year history of moaning about almost every aspect of the county game, and a century of predicting the imminent extinction of the international game, they all seemed in remarkably good spirits.
It wasn’t just the unusual, uplifting month-long heatwave and England being 2-0 up against India, it was an unmistakeable general feeling of prosperity, of well-being and contentment. Almost every aspect of the English domestic fixture list has been criticised as it has evolved in recent years and yet, there it was: an endless wave of domestic T20 matches in the six-week height of summer without a Test match in sight.
It was despised when it was announced. The fixture schedule was put together by unromantic people with a dispassionate view on maximising revenue. They believed that if supporters traditionally watched cricket in the second half of June and July, they would do so whether it was the county Vitality T20 Blast or a Test match.
Hence the five-match India series is being squeezed into August and September. The traditionalists hate it, but domestic T20 gates are at an all-time high and the Test matches, as predicted by the bean counters, are also full.
So how much has it been by choice — or chance? It was a heck of a gamble. Cricket lovers have been set in their ways for centuries. Instead of giving the customer what they wanted and have, by and large, always had, the England Cricket Board (ECB) and its ruthless marketeers told them what they wanted — and gave them a radically revised diet of games.
It may or may not last for the ECB but domestic revenue will be at an all-time high in 2018. And yet only one county, Surrey, would be able to stand alone and prosper without the annual £2m handout from the ECB based on their huge television deal with Sky. Gate receipts are financially inconsequential, but bums on seats are not because a large crowd makes for a better television production, which leads to greater advertising revenue and the selling-on of rights to other broadcasters.
A healthy, mutually beneficial relationship between any sporting body and a host broadcaster is vital to the commercial success of a league. So is the nature of the competition between the teams.
Sports fans may be blind in their devotion to a team, but they are not stupid or gullible. There needs to be a genuine reason for them to support a team, now more than ever given the decreasing amounts of disposable income and increasing ways to spend it.
Just like the ECB, Cricket SA subsidises its franchises and provinces. To keep doing that, it needs to increase its own revenue. The only way to do that is to establish a domestic T20 league with global appeal — and forge a solid bond with the only broadcaster capable of hosting the tournament, SuperSport. And they need to put bums on seats.
The threat of legal action over the failed, or cancelled, Global League still hangs heavy in the air and has reportedly given SuperSport cold feet about any vested involvement in the new replacement league, leaving Cricket SA even more financially vulnerable.
Less than three months from the scheduled start, no teams have yet been named, which will make it even harder to put the bums on seats so vital to the success of the tournament. No one wants to watch a product on television that is not worth attending live.
As well as things may be going in England, there is still a sense of fragility about the structure. So many things could upset the house of cards. But it is standing strong for the moment.
Cricket SA’s cards, on the other hand, are lying flat. Still in the box, in fact. It is the most challenging of times.