T20 Global League might be for subscribers only

THERE is no guarantee that Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) much-publicised T20 Global League tournament will be available for viewing by the majority of South Africans.

That means that if free-to-air broadcasters like the SABC or e.tv can’t come up with the funds to show the competition, it will primarily be broadcast on pay-tv.

CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat admitted no decision had been made about whether the tournament, that starts in November, will be shown on free-to-air platforms.

“I must be honest, this is a commercial venture. We would look to see who would bid the price that we need to achieve in order make the model work.”

CSA is in “sensitive” negotiations with pay-channel SuperSport, Lorgat added. The much-hyped tournament, which CSA hopes will be on par with similar competitions in India, Australia and the Caribbean, has already attracted interest from a number of overseas players with Chris Gayle, Kevin Pietersen and Brendon McCullum among a host of foreign stars who’ve already lent their names to the tournament.

CSA is in the final stages of wrapping up ownership agreements. The current shortlist, which Cape Argus sister paper The Star understands is 16, will be cut to eight over the next fortnight and includes foreign and local bidders.

The owners and eight franchises will be unveiled at an event in London on June 19.

Although there will be no quota policy in place for teams in the competition, part of the franchise agreement will include clauses ensuring prospective owners adhere to CSA’s “transformation philosophies.”

“The absence of targets shouldn’t be read as something that we won’t impress upon the owners to support us with.

“We’ve got an evaluation after seven years at which point we will look at the team owners, see who is contributing, who’s not, a number of key performance areas will be evaluated and if there’s failure on the part of our owners to support our transformation goals we will make that point.

“Ultimately there is provision to have a real hard discussion with those owners (who don’t fulfil the transformation mandate).” Lorgat also announced that CSA will invest R250 million to upgrade the country’s cricket stadiums.