Royals (Page 3 of 4)

Fair enough but do you ever wonder whether we, as county members, want or expect too much?

1. The Ashes are England cricket's only real asset. Warwicks made a £1.2 million profit this year hugely helped by the third day being rained off (covered by insurance) so being able to fleece the punters for a 5th day. This year we have an Australia V Pakistan game but can hardly sell a ticket. The Ashes is all. Yet many of us, despite, Im sorry no evidence that it benefits the game, want the ECB to sell this asset at far below market value so that people can watch it fior free.

2. Stanford did bring money into the game, albeit briefy, yet even at the time it was labelled "The Stanford Fiasco" (they could have trademarked tha)t. Everyone else - bar English fans and media - loved it. George Dobell, who was there, said it was the best atmosphere hed ever experience.  Yet because Mrs Prior sat on a knee and England werent called an England eleven its a "Fiasco".

3. T20 has been huge for the game financially. Yet to many county members its not "real cricket". We look down on it and hope it doesn't expand.

4. The Champions league is another money spinner. We are generally OK with that cos its out of season - but when this, inevitably expands, a la Hamsphire , we dont like that either.

At the same time - see the accounts thread - we all agree how hard it is to make ends meet yet all find great difficulty in suggesting  how to expand revenue - apart from the ubiquitous "use the ground more".

So, although we find it hard to suggest ways money can be increased, every time extra money is generated, we dont like that either.

Isnt the reality that we have to accept that to maintain the 4 day game - which can never make money - that we love, we have to accept another model for cricket (probably T20 as the only one day form) and accept that counties will explore every possible avenue to maximise revenue from the shorter form of the game?

The real task is to try and maintain competitive balance through all this. It might be impossible but every avenue should be explored. For example if the ECB sanction a Royals competition at the Rosebowl, then impose some form of revenue sharing, really enforce a salary cap, adjust the central allocation of funds. None of it might work but we should try - this is the key issue.

Last edited by KimJones (10-02-2010 12:44:58)

In reply to Kim's post above > all of your points have merit Kim.  However, the underlying problem is simply that the more revenue put into the game (Tests, Sky, T20 etc) the faster it disappears into the pockets of the players.  Until such time that the counties come up with a way of controlling employee expenditure then we'll continue to be in an ever-downward spiral.  If by some chance, all counties were given £3m a year by the ECB you could bet your house on the fact that competition for players would be so great that they'd all be on £250k per year and clubs would still be struggling to break even.

I think it was SS who mentioned 'franchise' with other sports.  For some time I've thought that Worcester as a town could come up with a joint package for WCCC, the Warriors and Worcester City FC.  If there was a membership scheme available for all three I'd be very interested.

A different perspective;

http://wisdencricketer.com/blogs/blog/2 … h-cricket/

I think I mirror what someone said on the times comments .

I am not against 2020 but the way it is going it will kill all other cricket .

I will becoming to this seasons 2020's at Hove as there is no other cricket at Hove between the end of May and August . They are entertaining and with you guys all meeting up at the Muzza marquee it will be fun .

Possibly cynically I want to make the most of watching CC down here whilst it still exists .
I am being realistic when I say I do not think county cricket as we know it will survive much longer.

We  will be left with 10 city franchises and english cricket  will be destroyed by money ,like english footy.

I think we want something that is considered by the money men to be anachronistic. Whether it is or not I am not so sure.

The role of first class cricket in England is primarily to develop international cricketers. I am not sure why it is necessary for that to be done at a profit. The profit is made by the National Team and is shared around, correctly, to enable the counties to afford the structures that they need to develop the talent in their area.

The problem we are now experiencing is caused by other people thinking that they can exploit the difference between the actual value of the developed players and how much they cost to "buy". It may work now but I dont begin to understand how in the future these players will be supplied. If you kill off the counties you kill off the training grounds of all English cricketers.

The ECB under Clarkes leadership defintely appreciates this but is being outgunned and need support. The problem with that is that the so called big counties of which the appallingly managed Surrey and the brilliantly managed Durham are just two examples would be happy ( very happy) to see the number of counties or franchises reduced to say 9.

For those big counties it may be a good thing but for English cricket it would be a disaster and for the likes of Sussex and Worcestershire it would look to be catastrophic.

Surely they'd pick up the better players from the defunct teams.  I assume little of counties' income comes from the championship so they wouldn't really be losing any money from playing fewer games.  England would benefit from the talent pool being smaller and playing against each other, whilst decreasing the workload on domestic cricketers and increasing coaching time

Sweaty...doesnt it breach the rules to call Dave a turkey?

Anyway hes quite right.If the championship was reduced to say the  big teams with good facilities or test grounds say Div 1 plus, glamorgan, Surrey,Middx...this would improve standards no end.

Surrey could get Nash,Yardy,Joyce,Prior, Wright, etc etc.They might even offer membership to the more respectable supporters (sorry Xian44)

Oh and clayton could play at Hove...a win win surely?

If the original Bradshaw city franchise competition could have been made certain to be independent of the counties, then I think county cricket could have flourished alongside it.  It's people's suspicions that lead to thinking that all the money would go to the bigger counties and the little ones without the Test grounds would go to waste.  It could end up that way now anyway if 8 teams sign up with the IPL.

This is where the reduction of counties idea collapses in my view.

I will agree that the initial impact would be a condensing of the talent pool but that is only the case for a very few years. It would be foolish to think that disenfranchising half of them would have any effect other than to mean that these counties will stop producing players of first class standard. There will be neither the level of coaching nor the help of having a local first class county to spark the initial enthusiasm and it is no coincidence that the vast majority of English born county players were born in first class counties.

Some might put the argument that these players will be picked up by the first class counties but it doesn't happen to any great extent now, so why would it in the future. It would take a hugely dedicated parent to run junior up to Surrey from Eastbourne on a regular basis and for several years they have had a grim record in bringing through players from within their own boundaries in the past few years, so exposing the Sussex and Kent pool to their tender mercies doesn't seem too bright.

Another point is that the number of professional cricketer jobs would be reduced to probably only about 160-180 if there were 9 clubs, with some of those going to overseas players (especially with world wide franchises). With a career span of 15 years for a good player it would mean an average of only 10 professional jobs becoming available per year. Not really an incentive to pick cricket as a career. Football in this country is in a similarly precarious financial state and we haven't won anything since 1966 but nobody puts forward the idea that we should only have a handful of clubs in that sport.

The real solution is to aim to eventually make all the counties first class, though I'm sure Surrey's house magazine (aka The Wisden Cricketer) won't like the idea. Expansion worked with Durham and if they hadn't been a first class side, how many of their recent test players, all of whom were in their system well before that county's test status, would have got a chance?

Last edited by ravenshill (11-02-2010 21:13:59)

Interesting points, Kim. People often look to the Aussie model for developing a strong national side of a small number of first class sides with no overseas allowed (in the long form). But correct me if I'm wrong, Crowie, but you don't need to have any more than that to make sure the good youngsters get into the system because that's how many centres of population you've got.

As Kim says, for England's prospects, there has to be a system that makes sure that all good youngsters get into the system. Shutting down half the counties makes no sense. Since first class cricket across all counties is unlikely, perhaps the alternative the money-makers will be thinking about, that makes sure they make money both from 20-20 and England test matches, is a second tier cricket in every county plus 8-10 city franchises with overseas players playing at test match grounds.

The 20-20 money-making is easy. Fly in the superstars. But they need to think hard about making sure we still have a good England test side (important for money making). Presumably the city franchises will also play four-day cricket with fewer overseas (or none?)? In other words, this will be the non-test match first class cricket. These franchises would then have scouts in all the counties watching the second tier stuff.

The counties would have to operate at a much smaller scale - decent facilities etc, but you wouldn't need, indeed be able to afford the upkeep of, a big ground like Hove.

And us Sussex fans will all become as knowledgeable as Sharkey on the lower tiers of Sussex cricket life. 'Hey - listen up! My boy just hit a tennis ball over the hedge into our neighbours garden!' etc

We appear to be moving on this:

http://www.theargus.co.uk/sport/cricket … _link_up/?

(Wasn't sure whether I should have started a new thread?)

"Interesting points, Kim. People often look to the Aussie model for developing a strong national side of a small number of first class sides with no overseas allowed (in the long form)."

They also have plenty of space and parks for kids to run around, and a climate that allows them to run around most of the time. I'm not convinced that the strength of their national side is a consequence of their model; and in any case there have been periods when they have been weak. One could equally argue that the strength of their team is despite, not because of, their model. Afterall they play far less proper (first class) cricket. Maybe it's luck; there's an expression down here that Australia is 'the lucky country'. New Zealand's system is similar to Australia's, and New Zealand are pretty weak at the moment.