Alviro Patterson wrote:Naturally the ECB are going to focus on saving competitions and matches which generate the most income. Of £51 Million income from The Hundred, £44.5 Million of it is from broadcasting rights and sponsorship deals. Ticket revenue is only £4 Million so the tournament has scope to go ahead behind closed doors.
The figure is 6.5 mill revenue from ticket sales. And its worth remembering that the cost metrics provided do not take into account the 23 million paid to the counties as a bonus. It leaves roughly 51 mill to 60 mill costs, a loss of 9 million which is projected to last 5 years. This changes behind closed doors to 44.5 mill to 60 mill, which is a far more signifiant loss. You have to remember that, as soon as you green light the competition you are locked to those agreements to pay for it. Players get paid for playing as per their contract, they are due bonuses are per their contract, or prize money… In short, with every ball bowled behind closed doors, the financial picture of the tournament becomes more grim. The ticket sales do not account for much in the revenue model, but they are the thing that drags it from catastrophic loss to manageable long term losing making venture thats worthwhile.
There comes the question, how long can the ECB keep the tournament going if it fails? Because firing it up at the wrong time and incurring more debt at the very least impacts how long that is viable. If they stated the risk of 5 years losses is worth it and expected, then incurring double loss means they have to be profitable sooner to make the project viable. With 100,000 ticket sold in the initial run, the people seem to have already voted with their feet; despite the ECB downplaying the figures of the T20 blast on purpose to make the hundred look better, the blast tipped a million last year. This competition already looks a white elephant, Coronavirus makes it look like a shining tower in a wasteland.
You also have to consider what agreements the ECB have with its stakeholders. Grounds are absorbing costs to provide venues for hosting, but they were promised 30 percent of all ticket sales. 30 percent of zero is….. zero. So actually to get venues to stump up a place to play, the ECB are going to have to offer more financial compensation. And that will have to be large. The majority of counties dont make money on tickets, its beers and burgers, parking, programmes, the club shop….
Taking an example of my last Sussex AGM financial year ends, ticket sale revenues were less than half the catering revenue on match day profits. People pay 15 quid for the ticket, and put 30 behind the bar. In fact, the average fan spend roughly the same in the club shop than they do on the ticket.
All that being lost means the ECB have to offer hosting counties money to replace that, or they might be inclined to just refuse. There is no money for a venue to host a game when there are no fans, so the ECBs costs will go up.