John Stern: Ashes TV rights and wrongs
November 13th, 2009 by John Stern in Test cricketThis is not a clear-cut argument. I don’t believe that there is some moral imperative that demands everyone has the right to watch Test cricket, or the Ashes or whatever, on free-to-air television. It’s about what is best for cricket.
And the idea of Government intervention to enforce this seems outdated. It seems outdated in 2009. What will it feel like in 2016, the first home Ashes series to be affected by David Davies’ recommendations.
What I’m wondering is whether any of this actually matters. Does having one Test series every four years on free-to-air TV make a material difference to the overall health of and support for cricket, which surely is the ECB’s ultimate responsibility?
And, as Andrew Miller points out so articulately on Cricinfo, the broadcasting landscape is changing so fast that free-to-air TV, as we currently understand it, will probably be an obsolete concept by 2016.
In my February 2005 editorial after Sky had bought the rights to England’s home Tests, I wrote that cricket needs exposure because that is how it picks up what might be described as passing trade. That remains the case. A free-to-air platform gives them that and even in that changing landscape, the UK’s main TV channels still have the capacity to create national viewing events, whether that’s a World Cup semi-final or X Factor.
The trade-off is between exposure and revenue and I think the jury is still out on this one. 2009 wasn’t as big as 2005 but that’s not just because fewer people could watch it on TV.
2005 undoubtedly prompted lots of people, many of them kids, to take up cricket but they still need ways and means of playing it, which costs money. That’s where the ECB would argue that TV revenue funds the grassroots game. I buy that argument up to a point. Sky money also royally funds Team England and the first-class game. To what end? There is no justification for having around 400 professional cricketers in this country, some of them earning very decent money for being moderate, journeymen players performing in front of mostly tiny crowds.
So, I’m very suspicious about the ECB’s financial scaremongering. But the sad reality is that, though, that if the ECB’s TV revenue was cut, it would most likely be the bottom end of the game rather than the counties who would do worst out of it and that’s not a good thing. I like the idea that a loss in revenue would bring the bloated nature of the 18-county system into sharp focus but I’m not convinced it would.
For better or worse, it is the ECB’s responsibility to run the game in England and Wales. They should have worked harder and continue to work harder to make cricket, in some form, appealing to a free-to-air broadcaster. But I’m not convinced that the proposed re-listing of The Ashes does anything other than score the Government a few Middle-England brownie points.
John Stern is the editor of The Wisden Cricketer
Posted in Test cricket | 3 Comments »
November 13th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
What is best for cricket is the major consideration, but having the Ashes available to be seen by all is also an end in itself.
Also, if the Government see fit to intervene on the grounds that the Ashes is significant to the nation, should they not perhaps do the same to address the organisation of English cricket?
If cricket is important to the nation, then how can it be right that its future is decided by the chairmen and members of the counties, who are forced to weigh county handouts against grassroots investment?
November 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Everyone involved in English cricket should welcome David Davies’ recommendation that The Ashes should be shown on terrestrial television as a “crown jewels” event. They won’t of course – expect a strong anti reaction from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) who will their future income streams being under threat – indeed Giles Clarke has already predictably blown his top. But in fact the news is just the shot in the arm that English cricket needs and not only the fans should celebrate. Because it should prompt a root and branch review of the finances and governance of cricket in Britain so that a fit-for-purpose domestic structure is established along with a far greater spectator/viewer imperative than currently exists.
The ordinary cricket fan has been the principal casualty of the disproportionately commercial bias of the ECB in recent years. Ticket prices for international matches are by some margin the most expensive in the world and with the only alternative for the fan requiring a satellite or cable subscription, which may cannot afford, cricket has slipped in the public interest compared with that glorious summer of 2005. That year, of course, The Ashes were on free-to-air Channel 4 and the viewing figures were huge. This year, although the cricket was almost as enticing as in 2005, the viewers were hardly surprisingly far fewer in number.
Why does the ECB seek to market its valuable international cricket properties to the highest bidders disregarding, in the process, the needs of the ordinary cricket fan? The answer, of course, rests not with the drive for income per se but with the grossly overblown expenditure that the ECB indulges in. This brings us, inevitably, to the subject of the structure of domestic cricket in England and Wales. The only way that an 18 county domestic structure can exist (just!) is if its costs are subvented by handouts from the ECB. These handouts amount to around £2million per year per county and we all know what the counties do with a significant proportion of that money and who the eventual beneficiaries are – and that they are not qualified to play for England!
It may seem slightly perverse to argue that the likely reduction in ECB income that the Davies recommendations will mean is actually good for the game. But if, as is likely, it forces the whole basis of the financing and operations of the ECB to be reviewed then only good can come out of it. And the start point for all this should be the ordinary cricket fan who wants affordable international cricket and, I would suggest, a far higher standard top-tier domestic cricket structure. A structure that is above all a developing ground for players who have the ability to get through to the international team and who are given the opportunity to do so in domestic competitions which are not primarily, as at present, nice little earners for itinerant cricket mercenaries!
November 14th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Look i am a village cricketer and are nets are disgusting full of holes!!! Our wicket is shocking and barely playable! Our very small club hut is rotting!!! And i stress hut not Pavillion!! We cant afford to do anything!!! The Day any of sky’s money actually gets down into grass roots cricket i will eat my hat! I think the ECB should keep thier contract with Sky if they can prove they have spent at least 50% of the money on the cricket front line on putting up new nets for all to use not just for the clubs who have money!!!! They need to buy land and install community wickets on it!!! And lets be real it aint gonna happen as the money will get lost somewhere along the line!!!