Impact of Indian-led T20 franchise cricket
The impact of the Indian-led Twenty20 franchise cricket format has caused schisms among sports executives. It gets harder to block out the noise of the debate about how T20 franchise cricket will be changing the future of the sport.
Sunil Gavaskar, a former cricket player from India, said that people who dislike the format and how Indians run it are just ungrateful. In a thinly veiled poke at English and Australian administrators, he said that Indian executives are better able to look out for Indian cricket’s best interests than those who are trying to mess with it.
This might seem like an exaggeration at a first glance. It might seem like a thinly veiled criticism of how cricket used to be run. But professional cricket has been changing right before our eyes. The future of cricket is taking shape. The T20 franchise cricket seems to be the most important thing to change.
Gavaskar remarks that the leaders of other countries should take care of their own needs as a priority. This gets harder to do when the top players choose when, where, and in what format they want to play.
People have a lot of ideas about who and what is going to be hurt by the disruption.
Changes might happen in the way cricket is run at home. The economics of cricket has changed a lot owing to the T20 franchises. Test matches were used to create most of the money for the national boards of India, Australia, and England. This money was generated from ticket sales, sales at the stadium, sponsorships, and media rights.
The Indian Premier League has changed this situation to an extent where the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) does not depend on money from Test matches. This has given the BCCI an upper hand in the places where international cricket decisions are made.
The countries, Australia and England, have their own short-format franchise cricket tournaments. But for these countries, Test matches are still a big source of income.
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which owns Lords, received a lot of bad press in the season when England played against New Zealand in a Test match. This happened at the same time when the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and public holidays were announced to encourage people to party. A few days before the game, there was a rumor that at least 16,000 tickets, costing more than £100, had not been sold. The official number of people who can be accommodated is 31,000.
The MCC said owing to the public holidays the demand was lower than expected. However, cricket fans ensured that the drop in attendance was due to high ticket prices and a cost-of-living crisis in the United Kingdom. For a long time, it seems like the MCC has thought it has a captive market for the best summer sports events in England and has the right to charge what it wants.
A ticket to a Test match costs £120 and lasts for six hours. This is possible when the weather is excellent and it works out to an average of £20 per hour. This could be termed a fair price.
For example, a ticket to see a Hundred match at Lords is £40 for an adult, $5 for under 16, and free for under 6. Two and a half hours are dedicated at this rate during a match.
Since the English Cricket Board derives most of its money from Test matches, it finds itself in a tough spot. It is trying to spread its risk and has added a new way to make money, the Hundred. The Hundred is being played at the same time as the Tests against South Africa. This step is taken because it is afraid that Test match cricket will lose popularity.
In contrast to this dilemma, there is a situation that is clear. The Asia Cup will be starting on the 27th of August at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. The stadium has a capacity of 30,000 people, which is the same as Lords. Prices for tickets start from AED 30 to 75 ($8 to $20) and go up to AED 250. The prices depend on the match and the type of seat. On August 15, the first batch of tickets was open for sale online. Tickets for the match between India and Pakistan were sold out in just one hour.
Gavaskar’s opinions are based on clear patterns in the cricket game. About 70% of the money that cricket generates around the world is derived from the BCCI. This is because the BCCI has turned its supporters into money and has put them to work.
As a result, the dominance of Indian franchise interests is growing. Even though the International Cricket Council has given its members schedules that are quite busy, India and its partners have decided where cricket will go in the future. Cricket is run by money, the media, and advertisers, who contain the boards in their grip.
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