Crunch time for SA to decide on future of Global League
Some of the hardest and most important decisions in the history of South African cricket will be made on Tuesday. It requires no stretching of the imagination to see the game, domestically and internationally, being changed not just for decades to come, but forever.
Cricket SA’s board of directors and its entire members council will meet to decide on the way forward for the Global League – if there is a way forward.
Simply put, they have three choices: postpone the inaugural season by a year; dissolve it completely; or revisit and rework as much of the finances and logistics as possible.
At this stage, sustainability and profitability are beyond the horizon.
The first two options would destroy the league’s credibility and make a relaunch at a later date almost impossible.
It would also mean an indefinite reliance on income from bilateral tours for survival.
Bilateral series are dying out, as we know, and with India’s Board of Control for Cricket cynically changing or cancelling fixtures, Cricket SA would be forced to downscale every aspect of its operations just to stay afloat.
There are people at Tuesday’s meeting who believe the Global League is doomed and all the above is inevitable.
They believe it is nothing but folly to spend R400m in a year without, by Cricket SA’s own admission, the chance of a return on that investment until — optimistically — the third year of the tournament.
Cricket SA’s financial reserves hover at around R650m, of which almost R400m came from a one-off compensation payment from the cancellation of the domestic Champions League.
So the conservatives believe Cricket SA will be left vulnerable and exposed by the Global League and the financial model and revenue forecasts were “hopelessly optimistic right from the start”, according to one of them.
Nothing is possible without a broadcast partner, of course, and SuperSport is the only one at the negotiating table.
In theory it can offer what it likes but the number will not be decided by it or by Cricket SA but by what is required to keep the tournament alive.
There is no point in SuperSport paying peanuts only to see a poor product bomb.
Cricket SA was always going to cede control of its tournament by selling the teams to private investors, but now it has also lost control of 90% of the revenue stream.
Cricket SA is no longer asking SuperSport if it is willing to pay its price — it is asking SuperSport if it is willing to pay any price.
SuperSport is wary of a gruesome, cannibalistic scenario in which it financially eats itself.
At this stage the heavy majority of votes will be in favour of restructuring the league as much as possible in the 23 days before the first game is played.
Cuts and compromises will be made wherever possible but not, of course, at the top end of the players’ pay scale where eight international marquee players with highly debatable crowd-pulling power will be paid $250,000 each. They have signed two-year contracts.
Promotion and marketing budgets have already been slashed, but it won’t end there.
The rental agreements between the new franchises and their host venues are dangerously inflated and will have to be slashed. They are “dangerous” because stadium rental is just one of the costs – travel and accommodation are others – which have to be carried by the owners.
Financial forecasts and projections are going on all the time. Cricket SA says the owners will lose about $1.5m in the first year but are happy to make that investment for the potential returns over the decade of their contract. Not all of them are. Like a jittery stock market, they are watching each other closely.
If one of them so much as blinks, it could trigger a mass scramble for the exit door.
But for true cricket lovers, it’s not just about T20 cricket and money, it is about player retention. More and more of this country’s best players will prioritise their playing careers around earning potential in the years to come, and without a successful T20 league, that won’t be the case in SA.
Many clever people will put their heads together on Tuesday and come up with what they believe is the best way forward.
It is likely to involve the Global League going ahead amid a painful restructuring process. It will need a mountain of goodwill from players, owners, hosts and other stakeholders to succeed.
It will also need lots of bums on seats. The problem is, most existing supporters don’t know much about the tournament, never mind the potential new fans it wants to attract. And without a marketing and promotion budget….
The odds are vast but, strangely, I’m still more inclined to believe South Africans will pull it off. Perhaps that’s because the consequences of failing to do so are too ghastly to contemplate.