The EPL: For and against
July 18th, 2008 by Daniel Brigham in County cricket, EPL, England, Twenty20 and tagged allen stanford, daniel brigham, EPL, giles clarke, the wisden cricketerREASONS WHY THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE WON’T WORK
- It isn’t premier. Especially when it has a second division. Unless they call the first division the premier premier league.
- Twenty teams? 12 too many.
- It’s scheduled for June. On average, June is far wetter than May and July.
- Few people in England want to see Leicestershire v Northamptonshire, so why will anyone from abroad want to watch it?
- Fireworks and laser shows in Derby? You have to be kidding – they’re still working out how to combat the sun.
- They haven’t announced any cheerleaders! Why not?
- So, twenty teams. Each team is likely to have four international stars. So there needs to be at least 80 box-office international cricketers to spread around. There are barely 30 in the world.
- Bill Frindall will have to work so quickly that his beard will catch alight.
- The majority of the matches will be played in front of around 6,000 people. Hardly an atmosphere to rival the IPL.
- Giles Clarke will probably attend every much in Allen Stanford’s helicopter and point at people he doesn’t know like they’re his best mate.
- The current Twenty20 Cup, which will run over three months, will be redundant.
- There won’t be enough money to go around to afford all of the big-name stars
- Shilpa Shetty isn’t involved. Hmmm. Does Charlotte Church like cricket?
REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE WILL WORK
- It won’t.
Daniel Brigham is assistant editor of The Wisden Cricketer
Posted in County cricket, EPL, England, Twenty20 |
July 18th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I think the EPL will work only if there is the same amount of money in it as the IPL because if there isnt then all the world class players will ecept the more lucrative deals which the IPL offers.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I can only imagine anything remotely laudable coming off this by being able to show these Friday night matches on a free to air tv channel, which I guess would be five (ughh). T20 might have exposed a lot of people to cricket, but the majority of people I reckon don’t know what Twenty20 actually is at all. Just like I’ve no idea what the difference is between Rugby league and union.
Hidden away on Sky still, it’s got no chance, and if all these matches are only on friday night, then there’s so many matches which could never be televised anyway, I’m sure a “normal” channel would still jump at the chance and start another lovely wave of conversions away from whatever else passes as normal friday night. Which tonight is utterly nothing at all.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Friday night in London the crowds will be huge. It’ll work really well - it’s a fine game.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:58 am
It simply can’t rival IPL. You just don’t have pockets deep enough and the passion of the sub-continent can’t be replicated in any way. Plus, there was a novelty factor of T20 in India, which is not the case with England. India’s T20 World Cup triumph triggered a mass hysteria about the format, which provided the perfect build up for IPL. IPL was the blockbuster, EPL mere bagatelle.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:15 am
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September 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
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September 20th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
There is room for a seriously good and exciting Twenty20 competition during the English summer - of course there is. The rest of the world isn’t playing cricket then so we could structure something with genuine international interest that would have terrific commercial potential as well. But Giles Clark and his bunch of Muppets have blown the ‘opportunity – no surprise there then. Here’s how you do it, and how you don’t:
1. You only need ONE Twenty20 competition in the summer not TWO (Doh!) as planned.
2. You don’t need 20 teams – are they totally MAD?
3. You need not to start with the counties but with the understanding that eight teams and eight venues is what makes sense. IPL got it right.
4. Choose the venues – Lord’s; Oval; Trent Bridge; Old Trafford; Headingly; Rose Bowl; Cardiff; Riverside; Edgbaston; Wembley; Twickenham; Murrayfield; Millennium Stadium; Emirates Stadium; City of Manchester Stadium…. All could be in the frame on the short list (amongst others).
5. Inviter tenders from the operators of the stadia in collaboration with promoters to bid to create a Twenty20 team to play at their venue. Might include some counties (why not?) but it doesn’t have to. Choice to be part commercial (venues with maximum spectator capacity) and part geographic spread.
6. Team composition and structure of the competition: Follow the IPL model.