Random Cricket Thread (Domestic Cricket)

[hopeforthebest]

This on cricinfo: http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cric ... 86257.html

How is it possible for the ECB which is an association of the 18 counties can threaten those counties? Sure the ECB executives are employed at the counties discretion not the dog but the tail.

[westoelad]

This on cricinfo: http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cric ... 86257.html

How is it possible for the ECB which is an association of the 18 counties can threaten those counties? Sure the ECB executives are employed at the counties discretion not the dog but the tail.

ABOUT THE ENGLAND AND WALES CRICKET BOARD
The England and Wales Cricket Board was established on January 1, 1997 as the single national governing body for all cricket in England and Wales.

It has its headquarters at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

The formation of the ECB was the culmination of a drive towards creating, for the first time, one unified body responsible for the management and development of every form of cricket for men and women.

This included clubs, schools, juniors and youth, disabilities cricket, representative, first class and international cricket - the whole game from playground to the Test arena.

The ECB took over the responsibilities carried out for some 30 years by the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB), the National Cricket Association (NCA) and the Cricket Council, all of which ceased to exist.

In April 1998 the Women’s Cricket Association (WCA) was also integrated into the organisation.

The formation of the ECB followed two years of research into how cricket in England and Wales could be better organised to attract more players to the game, raise standards at all levels and promote cricket as a spectator sport.

The ECB structure

Responsibility for the day-to-day running of the ECB rests with the executive management team who report directly to the chief executive, Tom Harrison, with each enjoying a high degree of functional delegated authority.

The chief executive, in turn, reports to the Chairman of the ECB Board. This was expanded in size from 12 to 14 members in May 2010; for the first time including two women directors.

Full details of the ECB Board’s composition can be found here.

An executive committee chaired by the Chief Executive is responsible for delivering the ECB’s strategic plans and three other committees (cricket, commercial and finance) are actively responsible for working with the leadership team on policy, planning and strategic issues - plus also an arm’s-length Discipline Standing Committee.

The board is comprised of a chairman, deputy chairman and chairman of cricket elected by all 41 members of ECB, two independent directors, three directors from the first-class game, two directors from the recreational game, two ECB executives, a women’s game representative and an MCC representative.

ECB Management Board

List of Directors:

Colin Graves - ECB Chairman
Giles Clarke CBE - ECB President
Ian Lovett - ECB Deputy Chairman - chairman to the audit committee
Jim Wood - chairman of the recreational assembly, chairman of Devon Cricket Board
Peter Wright - chairman of cricket
Richard Thompson - chairman of Surrey CCC
Tom Harrison - ECB Chief Executive Officer
Lucy Pearson - women's game representative
Matthew Fleming - MCC representative
Professor Lord Patel of Bradford OBE - independent director
Jane Stichbury CBE - independent director
Andy Nash - chairman of Somerset CCC
Martin Darlow - CEO of Bedfordshire Cricket Board
Members of the ECB

The 41 members of the ECB are:

The Chairmen of the 18 First-Class Counties
The Chairmen of the 21 County Boards in Non-First Class Counties
The Chairman of the MCC
The Chairman of the Minor Counties Cricket Association

The 1st class counties are represented by 3 members of the management committee I.e. chairmen of Surrey, Somerset and Middlesex( who isn't listed above.).
It seems that Harrison and Groves are the main protagonists for a franchise T20. Meeting of 27th March should be interesting.

[Durhamfootman]

This on cricinfo: http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cric ... 86257.html

How is it possible for the ECB which is an association of the 18 counties can threaten those counties? Sure the ECB executives are employed at the counties discretion not the dog but the tail.

give yourself a big slap around the head

that's commie talk, mister!

[Durhamfootman]

remember..... the ECB is on first name terms with your fridge

be afraid!

[braveneutral]

Be very afraid!

[Alviro Patterson]

The fact that the ECB are offering counties £1.3 Million to sign over their media rights or they won't get payments just sums up the intent of the elect few.

Here is an idea for Counties to be financially self sufficient - how about sell domestic media and image rights as a separate entity once the TV rights expire in 2019? Back in 2005 when Domestic Cricket TV rights were added to the England ones, Twenty20 was in it's infancy as a competition and marquee competitions such as IPL and World Twenty20 did not exist.

The Natwest T20 Blast has turned out into a fine product - counties like the Friday night slot of T20 Cricket and crowds are constantly on the increase. It's usual May to August slot is a domestic broadcasters dream as an alternative sport to show outside the football season, it could also generate Overseas interest when most test nations are not as active cricket wise.

To put into perspective, BT Sport shell out £18 Million per year to show the Big Bash and Australia home internationals. A similar domestic TV deal would generate £1 Million per year for each county. Add any revenue from potential Overseas TV rights and soon the Counties will make at least what they would get from an ECB payment and still keep their image rights.

Then there is the image rights themselves, which are worth a fair fortune. We might like to mock Peter Moores when he mentioned "We need to look at the data" for England's World Cup exit against Bangladesh, but data is worth big money to companies with an online presence (fixtures, results, match stats, team logos).

Counties becomes self-sufficient, Colin Graves achieves his objective, everyones a winner.

[sussexpob]

As a man educated in the law, I'd love to see the legal outcome of a court case with this, there are several conflicting legal principles that are involved. For a start, at what point does the ECBs interest in being guardian get trumped by the stated views of its beneficiaries?

The ECB are a no share capital company by guarantee. Essentially this means they themselves generate money in the interests of its members. They have a defined legal role in this, to maximise commercial revenues for the game and to grow interest in a cultural level. They could no doubt adequately argue a franchise system is doing this.

Yet they also have a defined legal responsibility to uphold tradition. And deep down their only forum for cash generation should be at the top first class cricket and lower down in grassroots. That money should, every single penny, be going to some form of provision to actual clubs.

So the counties are the main stakeholders. It seems utterly wrong therefore that the guardians of the game should threaten their existence with a measure that they see as fulfilling their brief. It seems counter intuitive, like a charity for blind people trying to tell it's beneficiaries that listening to more music is more beneficial than buying guide dogs they asked for.

What is completely out of debate is funding. The ECBs own stated legal capacity says that counties must agree by 2/3RSS majority (MCC is considered a 19th county in this) for any ECB board exercise in power in relation to budgets to counties, so threats to not pay counties signing up for a media deal would be illegal unless the counties themselves agreed to the measure. And then such a move opens the door for arguments about competitive integrity, should or does the ECB have the capacity to essentially change the competitive spirit of the game with two tiered funding?

In fact, unless companies house memorandum of association on file for the ECB is incorrect, it would also deem all budgetary decisions made without majority county approval are illegal, and would also sound like the Durham points deduction was thus, as county penalties also require a similar vote (although this is a deep rabbit hole in relation to whether or not such a penalty was part of a contractual funding agreement for the creditor payment made). Also, it seems test venue decisions are a matter for FC votes

[westoelad]

This confirms AP's view on the increasing popularity of the domestic T20 blast and the potential market for media rights. That's exactlty the reason the 2 Indian mediamoguls got involved with Durham because they saw the a massive potential riches from it in the Indian market
http://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/93 ... ity-charts

[andy]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cric ... 86668.html

another one

[Dr Cricket]

Shows the mess ECB have in the current contract that they can't even get the north vs south series televised, so what is the actual point of the series then.
ECB been having a shocker in this current contract first they sign the contract 1 month before BT come in the market, secondly they add so many stupid clauses that gives Sky the power.

Also Alviro not sure ECB will ever get 18 million a year for domestic cricket alone, they will only get that if the T20 stuff is massive and we already seen signs of Sky/BT already blackmailing ECB that if the t20 stuff isn't city based they will not be paying big bucks and if the competition is a success ECB should in real terms get a deal matching the international stuff if the market works the same way like it does in Australia/India.
BT only paid that sum for Australian cricket for the Ashes next winter.

Not sure the next contract will see big bucks for the domestic game, think only the international one will be big with the domestic one included in that but if the T20 stuff works then in the future ECB might separate it like CA and BCCI have done.
should be noted CA only separated the rights because Ten went crazy for it and that ten wanted the whole lot but 9 had a clause in that they can match ten bid for the international stuff, So CA essentially had no choice but separate the bids since bash wasn't included in the clause.

[Alviro Patterson]

Shows the mess ECB have in the current contract that they can't even get the north vs south series televised, so what is the actual point of the series then.
ECB been having a shocker in this current contract first they sign the contract 1 month before BT come in the market, secondly they add so many stupid clauses that gives Sky the power.

Also Alviro not sure ECB will ever get 18 million a year for domestic cricket alone, they will only get that if the T20 stuff is massive and we already seen signs of Sky/BT already blackmailing ECB that if the t20 stuff isn't city based they will not be paying big bucks and if the competition is a success ECB should in real terms get a deal matching the international stuff if the market works the same way like it does in Australia/India.
BT only paid that sum for Australian cricket for the Ashes next winter.

Not sure the next contract will see big bucks for the domestic game, think only the international one will be big with the domestic one included in that but if the T20 stuff works then in the future ECB might separate it like CA and BCCI have done.
should be noted CA only separated the rights because Ten went crazy for it and that ten wanted the whole lot but 9 had a clause in that they can match ten bid for the international stuff, So CA essentially had no choice but separate the bids since bash wasn't included in the clause.

Except the new Twenty20 tournament is not necessarily city based, like Natwest T20 Blast is not neccessarily county name based.

It's all good and well saying "Be like BIg Bash" or "England needs franchise city based T20", but English cricket is unique both culturally and geographically. If there was a Leeds team playing in the new T20 competition, the vast majority of Yorkshire cricket fans will ultimately snub it. If anything, the Leeds Netball and Rugby Union sports teams have recently been rebranded as Yorkshire Jets and Yorkshire Carnegie to increase their fanbase, which is proof that City based teams does not necessarily work.

Playing cricket in blocks does not work in England, how many Twenty20 and Royal London One Day competitions have been blighted by the weather? From a spectator point of view, people (especially families in which the tournament is supposedly aimed at) do not have the disposal income to pay top money for top quality cricket over a short period of time. Matchday tickets would have to be dirt cheap, but I doubt that when the new T20 competition is forecasted to lose £15 Million in it's 1st year and is unsure when a profit will be made.

Holding a city based tournament over the summer holidays won't guarantee attendances either, because folk will be going away on their jollies and anyone with disposal income are likely to be sun worshiping abroad. Anyone who is involved in grassroots cricket will know how hard it is to field a team in peak summer.

[Arthur Crabtree]

South on top v North in a 50 over game, the traditional Dubai curtain raiser.

T. Curran and R.Jones among the wickets.

[andy]

apparently Bayliss is actually at these games!

[hopeforthebest]

apparently Bayliss is actually at these games!

Shock horror, it's a mirage.

[andy]

easy 10 wicket victory for the south...unbetaen century for Dawid Malan