Headingley has already won the big prize and there is more to come
It is back to the future for our traditional Test venues but spare a thought for the counties who missed out
And then there were five. Sometimes, change can happen so swiftly and so jarringly that before you know it something has gone full circle and we are left where we started. Like England’s Ashes venues. After some experimenting the famous five of Lord’s, the Oval, Old Trafford, Headingley and Edgbaston, are Ashes venues now, and will be again in four years’ time.
It does not matter that there are three Test teams above England or Australia. Or that the world’s best Test batter is not in northern England, but North Sound, Antigua, this week. Because the Ashes, the attention, the rivalry and the evocative memories, creates a spectacle unlike any other.
Change, we are told, is both good and necessary. But the Ashes, in its 142nd year, is big business, and remains the biggest recurring business on English soil. For Headingley therefore, where the third Test of this series is unfolding for the 25th time at this ground, regaining what they had for so long presumed was theirs, after a 10-year hiatus, is crucial.
“Absolutely it is,” asserts Andy Dawson, Yorkshire’s commercial director. “It’s very important that we continue to be a venue of choice for the ECB [England and Wales Cricket
Board]. There is a lot of competition on the circuit and obviously we want to stay at the top table. For our business model, [the Ashes] is essential. We have a big debt here, we have to pay it back, but it is sustainable at the moment and we need to keep improving our facilities.”
Early last year, when the 2023 Ashes venues were announced, Yorkshire’s debt was reportedly £43million. In part this was due to the renovation of Headingley’s Football Stand End.
Happiness for Headingley then, that their imminent future is secure. Not so for the likes of Glamorgan, Durham and Nottinghamshire. When Trent Bridge hosted a 2013 Ashes Test, their then head of marketing claimed that those five days of cricket were “worth more than £30million to the East Midlands region”, with hoteliers doing “a month’s worth of business in a week”. No longer. Despite having hosted 22 Ashes Tests, the last a commanding English win, they are not currently slated to hold another.
“The public demand for Ashes Test matches is as high as ever,” says Simon White, Glamorgan’s finance consultant. The county have hosted three Tests, two against Australia, and all in the past decade. “Demand for other Test matches, particularly spring ones, has diminished a little. Financial returns for Ashes matches are the highest; the ticket and hospitality pricing tends to be higher for Ashes and the quantity of food and beverage is also higher.”
For Glamorgan, however, it has been a bittersweet experience, one from which only in 2015 were they truly able to profit. “Comparisons are a little difficult over the 10-year period since the 2009 Ashes,” adds White. “As ECB financial [match fee] arrangements have changed. Blind bids for the early matches led to inflated fees and less profitable outcomes for the 2009 and 2011 matches in Cardiff.”
Glamorgan recorded an operating profit of £592,837 for 2015, their last Ashes year, in contrast to an £87,030 loss the year before. But the landscape changed. Cardiff is no longer a Test match venue.
But the big five can no longer be complacent. Yorkshire emphasise the upgrades to facilities as integral to their successful Ashes bids.
“For us, now, it is non-match day that we have turned to,” explains Dawson. “As we have increased the facilities. We have 30 days of cricket and rugby, and then 335 days of non-match day activity.
“So it’s making sure that we really sweat the asset and generate as much income as we can on a non-match day to sustain our business here. That also means being less reliable on international cricket.”
And cricket can be unpredictable. “We budget for four full days,” says Dawson, speaking on the first day. “Four sold-out days, including hospitality, which we have done. If there are under 30 overs bowled, ticket-holders are insured. We are also insured, which means we are OK, and we retain the revenue from tickets.
“But we lose out from the secondary income, which comes from the bars, the mobile concession units and retail. And then day five is unbudgeted income. If we get to that stage we would probably sell out again, plus we’ll get all the secondary spend.”
On the first day at Headingley, 40,000 pints of beer were reportedly bought at the 18,000-capacity stadium and tomorrow is a bank holiday. Sixteen wickets on the second day dampened not just England’s spirits.
The unpredictability continues, therefore, but counties are adapting. Trent Bridge this year announced its second-highest annual surplus in its history and a club membership at its highest for a non-Ashes year.
An Ashes Test might not be a necessity and change, however fleeting, has been beneficial for all. It is, however, an awfully nice luxury to have.