County cricket / England

Ashes on free TV could mean four counties going bankrupt

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< 1 minute read

Sounds good to us. Can we choose which ones?

The ECB have felt it necessary to spend half a million pounds on some research that shows how badly off they’d be if the Ashes were put on free TV rather than Sky. We can’t help but think that an organisation that does that has no concept of the value of money.

The study also says that the ECB are ace because around a fifth of their expenditure is on ‘grass roots cricket’. The ECB think this is a large percentage. We don’t, because we don’t believe they should subsidise county cricket clubs so much. In our eyes, the ECB’s responsibilities are to grass roots cricket and the England team.

In other news, two more IPL franchises have been sold for jaw-dropping sums of money. For some reason, the IPL is awash with cash. It might be something to do with broadcasting matches on TV to as many people as possible at a decent, predictable hour.

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Default ThumbnailEPL: counties or regions? Default ThumbnailECB priorities – geraniums and counties Default Thumbnail10 million pound winner-takes-all Twenty20 match Default ThumbnailCounty cricket is dying and poverty-stricken and if something isn’t done soon the counties won’t even have enough money to tempt the world’s finest cricketers to renounce their international careers any more

15 comments

  1. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

    Can we pay another half a mil and get rid of another four counties?

  2. The ECB could be right – the Ashes is probably far too much for mere free to air broadcasters to handle. These broadcasters should be made to show non stop county matches all summer instead till they remember what cricket in England is!

    Anyway just imagine the Ashes with Mandy!

    Too many Counties? What is the current betting for the date the IPL reaches 18 franchises? You just know Modi want’s too……..

  3. There’s been far too much cricket on this blog recently, getting rid of some of the counties would help reduce the incidence of cricket related postings.

  4. The big confusion at the heart of English cricket is ownership – in other words, on whose behalf does the ECB actually operate?

    KC’s call for the ECB to spend money on ordinary clubs and the test team is, I think, where almost everyone would see the ECB’s responsibility to best lie. However this misses the reality, which is that the ECB is by constitution nothing more than the umbrella organisation for the eighteen counties. That they acknowledge that money must be spent on grass roots and test matches is actually just an acceptance that these things are important to the counties. If they were not, they could go to the wall as well.

    Imagine the situation if it were otherwise. Imagine a collective of eighteen counties having to go to an independent organisation, one that gets all its money from tests and all its participants from clubs, and asking for money to support them as just another form of cricket. They would get some, but it would be 20% of the total, not the bulk. They would be told – get your structure in order first, then we will help.

    Unfortunately, while I was thinking about how good this would be, I couldn’t help but see the head of this independent cricket body as spiderman.

  5. Four counties going bankrupt.
    How are we supposed to know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing until we know which counties they are?

  8. Perhaps the ECB would be better off organising a cheap online survey asking ‘which four counties would you like to get rid of?’

  10. Interesting, Bert. My list so far coincides with yours, insofaras I got as far as:

    Gloucestershire.

  11. I’m with you on Gloucestershire as I was once told off by one of their stewards for taking photos. From my seat. Near the back of the stand.

    Arsehole.

  12. Out of interest, is there any chat in which counties would actually struggle with less money from Sky?

  13. You can’t have Gloucestershire. Jon Batty’s just moved there! Essex once gave me a migraine, so I’m putting them forward just for the hell of it.

  14. Too late, they’re gone.
    Jon Batty is currently standing around in Bristol with his kit bag looking lost.

  15. Kent can’t be far off bankruptcy as it is so only 3 counties would need to be actively culled.

    & it’s bound to be a county like Leics that produces young talent rather than parasites like Notts which gets the chop.

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