GarlicJam wrote:Alviro Patterson wrote:
Then there is the other matter of media coverage and publicity in cricket, which is predominantly confined to digital media and paywall television. BSkyB will be influential on how franchise cricket will be televised, given they hold exclusive rights of all live English cricket until 2019.
From afar, and with a pretty ignorant understanding of the county system, I see this as being a stumbling block.
As soon as this finishes, I see that T20 needs to be separated from any new contract and sold to FTA tellie. Play on the county basis, 2 divisions, and as that very good article refers to, have it around school holidays to encourage the family roll-up. Being live to fta doesn't seem to have affected the crowd sizes in Aus, and it certainly HAS affected the awareness of the competition by the population as a whole. As an example, my S-i-L never watches any domestic cricket on tellie, until the BBL came along.
Having the international element of the imports certainly helps with this. While there are plenty of things CA has got right with the BBL, it certainly isn't perfect.
Logistically it's not going to be easy, terrestrial TV will seek maximum value for televising Twenty20 matches (i.e. on an evening)
This rules out a 10 city franchise team tournament featuring the best talent over 3 weeks, in case if the tournament is affected by weather.
Matches currently spread out for Friday nights is not practical as this affects the County Championship, either through cramming matches in or reducing the format from 16 to 10 matches per season.
To ensure maximum ground attendances and television ratings, the tournament must avoid clashing with association football.
Realistically this leaves a 6 week window between July and the 1st half of August to hold a Twenty20 tournament. Either reverting to the 3 groups of 6 format - 10 group stage matches, with Quarter Final knockout/Finals Day with matches played every Friday and Sunday. Or two Divisions of 9 with promotion/relegation, 16 group stage matches played on Friday/Sunday/Wednesday and possible playoff final at a later date.