The England and Wales Cricket Board insists that the sale of the eight Hundred franchises will be completed by the end of April, despite the delays to negotiations.
The governing body’s chief executive, Richard Gould, said that the high valuations were not one of the issues behind the delays, but admitted that future broadcasting rights were. “All the discussions are on a very, very sound footing,” Gould said, “we’re just trying to work out how to maximise value from sponsorships, tickets sales and broadcast revenues. They’re investing a lot of money into our game and we want to make sure that pays dividends.”
One sticking point is the issue of overseas TV rights. “We’ve got brilliant supporters for our UK domestic market through Sky, but there are probably significant opportunities in the overseas broadcast market and that’s very much something that they’re focused on,” Gould said. “But there are differences in the markets.
“The UK market is all on a subscription model, and the Indian market is all on advertising. Those are really very different dynamics when you’re just trying to work out how to maximise value. We need to make sure we’ve got something which is fit for purpose across the global markets, not just a UK market.”
At the same time, the ECB is launching another review of the domestic schedule, following on from previous reviews in 2018 and 2022. Like those, it will almost certainly conclude that there needs to be a reduction in the overall amount of cricket being played across the formats, but the ECB is hoping by taking a different route to the same conclusion – this review is going to be led by the counties and the newly formed Professional Game Committee – something will actually change this time around. The review is scheduled to take two to three months, and the hope is that the changes will be introduced in 2026.
“I think one thing is clear and that is that everybody recognises the schedule is not perfect,” said the managing director of professional cricket, Rob Andrew.
“It’s an easy thing to say that and a very difficult thing to say, well, OK, so what should it look like? We’ve got 18 counties that agree that it’s not right, but we’ve got 19 different versions of what the answer is. And our job over the next few months is to try to pull all of those views together to get to a schedule where everybody can look at it, and then we can all find a solution.” Andrew said that the onus will be on the counties themselves to consult with their members.
It seems likely that a new schedule will include fewer T20 Blast matches, given that the money coming in from the Hundred sale means the counties are under less financial pressure; fewer days of championship cricket; and ensuring that there is at least some 50-over cricket being played outside August, when the best players are all involved in the Hundred.
after newsletter promotion
“The County Championship is the blue-ribbon event of red-ball cricket in the world. We need to protect it and grow it and strengthen it, because we want that to continue long into the future. What that looks like in terms of the schedule and how many games are played that will come out in the wash.”