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General Cricket => Your Cricket => Topic started by: uknsaunders on November 20, 2014, 04:35:14 PM
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Food for thought:-
2006 - Finances - http://static.ecb.co.uk/files/ecb-annual-report-accounts-2006-finance-directors-report-1844.pdf (http://static.ecb.co.uk/files/ecb-annual-report-accounts-2006-finance-directors-report-1844.pdf)
2012/13 Finances - http://static.ecb.co.uk/files/1282-ecb-2012-annual-report-digital-12445.pdf (http://static.ecb.co.uk/files/1282-ecb-2012-annual-report-digital-12445.pdf)
Looks like 30-40m a year extra for Team England and the First Class Counties. Notice the grassroots stuff was cut back to £18m in the latest report.
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not sure if you are relating this new topic to the ECB release today showing participation in ametaur cricket is in massive decline, the ECB have finally woken up(it's been in decline since it was taken off normal TV-2005 and the Ashes when i'm sure you know it was at it's highest
It was the ECB who decieded to take Sky's money upfront and the first class counties and thought all their Xmases had come at once.
Now we pay the price...i'm sure this knowlegable forum knows how devastating this is for the future of the game we all love.
Personally, I absolutely totally blame the ECB,Giles Clarke and the lot of them.They wanted the money and what has happened years down the line.
If kids do not watch TV, and let's be frank, many households in this Country cannot afford Sky prices, they will not play cricket.The ametaur game then gets hit as a result.
We, the clubbies,are facing major problems and it's taken until 2014 to realise the long term plan for the game devised by those that run the game was flawed from the start.
It's sad, it was inevitable,and cricket will be hurt now and in the future...
Unless......something else can be done,but it looks on a spiral downwards
This is just my view of course,and I expect this topic could be lively :)
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Telegraph from Oct 23rd mentioned the counties were putting pressure on the ECB to get T20 Blast highlights packages onto FTA TV. Pot kettle black! This is off the back of disappointing attendences for the t20 blast.
Also coincides with possibly the dullest England team in living memory. ie. no personalities to front English Cricket . Cook has as much in common with the local clubbie as I have with weight watchers :D
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In the footnotes for the £18m the ECB decided to give the grassroutes game it mentioned minor counties and leagues. I assume that includes Development officiers. They also gave 190 grants - yes you read it right. They get £100m+ a year and the grassroots might get 190 grants.
No mention (from my quick skim read) of club funding.
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Having read some interesting articles today about the premier league and Sky and BT Sport (and also BBC and ITV for highlights) i think its interesting how the next round of TV discussions will go with cricket. The current deal ends in 2017 with a two year option. However i do wonder what would happen if the TV deal was up for discussion today what would be the outcome? Interest in playing cricket is dropping, the ECB are a shambles and the team aren't doing as well as they were.
The one thing thats evident is just how dependent on the TV money they are. If this was to drop below its current level you'd imagine cricket in this country would face quite the crisis
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Here is the Telegraph article Nick mentioned earlier. A good read http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/counties/11175150/Cash-strapped-counties-to-pressure-ECB-over-new-television-deal-with-Sky.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/counties/11175150/Cash-strapped-counties-to-pressure-ECB-over-new-television-deal-with-Sky.html)
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Popularity is aligned to personalities. In the 2005 team there were a load of personalities - even in the strauss era we had Graeme Swann.
now we have no-one
(and the one personality in Hales they seemingly won't pick - different topic - will start that now)
I am really board with this constant guff about culture and team England. how about picking the best 11 and actually winning.
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Pro cricket would only face a crisis because it's living beyond it's means.. ie paying players and staff way to much money. ECB have spent the money or hair brain schemes and salaries for themselves, local board 'development officers' and over pay'd players. It will take a county or two folding etc before things will change.
I know it's not the done thing but they need to prioritise the club scene, and that's not the top few divisions either.. but focus ont he clubs in the middle to bottom. The big clubs can look after themselves.
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a lot of the money just seems to have been spent bloating the top end of the game along with team england. the excessive amount of support staff around the counties and national teams. its seems to have got to the point where the counties can exist without the sky money but want to appeal to a bigger audience but doing so would them in financial difficulty in the short term
the natwest t20 blast which was never likely to work and for some reason be ridiculously stubborn to having a 6-8 week window like the rest of the world, having city franchises i think would help increase appeal and therefore more recreational players and money coming into the game.
if the money was spent more on growing the game from the ground up (not just clubmark clubs) there would a lot more interest in the national team and the amount of good players is bound to improve
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Agree re club mark. It's a good scheme but imagine a lot of clubs would struggle to meet the req. my understanding is you need it to get a grant from the ecb
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Clubmark has its merits but the ecb use it as a tool to be withhold funding. I sat in a funding meeting in Leeds once and when I mentioned we had no colts team or women's team I was told tough luck.
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English cricket (note: not just the ECB) NEEDS Sky's money. Simple as that. Without it the counties will fold! 70% of some counties income comes from the ECB which is in turn no doubt a majority straight from sky.
And without the county system you won't have an England team.
I can't see city franchises working either. The Aussies did it to INCREASE the amount of players playing not decrease it. The Indians did it so they could make more Money. Personally I put the IPL in the same league as the Football in the UK, its not about the sport its about the business.
However I do agree that it has to go back to a 2/3 week window that fits in with the international schedule to allow for big name England and overseas players to compete.
My childhood club has clubmark- it runs two mens sides, playing league cricket a sunday side and multiple kids teams. it is not a big club in terms of the level the adults play at though just has dedicated people in the right places!
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Easy solution is to cut the number of counties playing first class cricket and bring it down to 12. The freed up money can be filtered down into a beefed up minor county structure and then into improving facilities at club level. While people might jump up and down at such a suggestion, just look at the number of kolpak and players starting out. If first class cricket is a breeding ground for the test team then 80% of the players should be ready to do a job for England. I don't think its remotely close to that.
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More insight from Cricinfo:-
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/801903.html (http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/801903.html)
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Clubmark isn't about money. We play in a park and don't have our own clubhouse but have Clubmark.
Funding is an issue, there are huge sums of money being spent in our borough on two teams because they have influential pressure groups behind them. Neither have clubmark and both would fail any sort of inclusivity and diversity criteria that the ECB impose on the rest of us. But the ECB/MCB wish to hold up a political banner saying how much they do for certain groups. Try getting funding in London if its not for Women s cricket, disabled cricket or south asian cricket projects and you can go whistle. That isn't a secret its written down on all the funding streams literature. The people who in the majority fund cricket get bugger all back
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Clubmark isn't about money. We play in a park and don't have our own clubhouse but have Clubmark.
Funding is an issue, there are huge sums of money being spent in our borough on two teams because they have influential pressure groups behind them. Neither have clubmark and both would fail any sort of inclusivity and diversity criteria that the ECB impose on the rest of us. But the ECB/MCB wish to hold up a political banner saying how much they do for certain groups. Try getting funding in London if its not for Women s cricket, disabled cricket or south asian cricket projects and you can go whistle. That isn't a secret its written down on all the funding streams literature. The people who in the majority fund cricket get bugger all back
Clubmark does help, try getting a grant without it! That said, you are absolutely correct and too much is given to special cases and not enough to fund the nuts and bolts of grassroots cricket.
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Clubmark isn't about money. We play in a park and don't have our own clubhouse but have Clubmark.
Funding is an issue, there are huge sums of money being spent in our borough on two teams because they have influential pressure groups behind them. Neither have clubmark and both would fail any sort of inclusivity and diversity criteria that the ECB impose on the rest of us. But the ECB/MCB wish to hold up a political banner saying how much they do for certain groups. Try getting funding in London if its not for Women s cricket, disabled cricket or south asian cricket projects and you can go whistle. That isn't a secret its written down on all the funding streams literature. The people who in the majority fund cricket get ******** all back
We are having exactly the same problem in East London - we are desperatly trying to get money for artifical nets. We are being turned down for everything. I dont beleive there are any artifical prcatice faciltiies in our borough, we are more than willing to let the communnity use them but still no joy.
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Clubmark in my opinion doesn't work. I can't see how in reality it pushes clubs to provide anything extra that they wouldn't provide anyway. All it does is gives clubs (usually the big clubs but as we know not all) easier access to funding which in turn just makes them bigger and so able to horde more kids and pay more players. It's these clubs that are in a small way also to blame because they are only interested in their own survival and not what's best for players/the game. As long as they win their division, have £££ to spend on a overseas/pro/coach they think they are awesome.
Anyway, we all know it's not one thing that's the problem, it's literally the whole set up and the lifestyle that we now promote that is causing it. To change you would need to change so much before it would have any real effects, and that change can't/won't happen because there isn't enough cash up front to do it, not enough desire by the power clubs to lose their hold on the top leagues etc etc.
What is better for the game.... a few 'big' clubs or lots of smaller clubs??? I'd say lots of smaller ones will have MORE people playing which at the end of the day is the main thing that will keep the game alive.. dave who is paid or who plays in the top few divisions of cricket tbh is irrelevant as they'll play no matter what.
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I returned to the game a couple of years ago, after not playing since the early nineties.
In my hazy memory, I can't remember any club throughout the Bristol leagues with more than 3 sides. Now there are a number of "super clubs" with 4,5,6 sides. I can't see how this can be healthy for village cricket.
That, and the lack of any cricket on free to air tv, very little cricket being played in schools,football impinging on the cricket season,x box generation etc etc.
We play in the 4th div and have lost one club at the end of the season, and are likely to be loosing another.
A very sad state of affairs
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http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/801903.html (http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/801903.html)
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Well the moneys definitely not going into international ticket subsidization... Just check and looking at spending on average £120 for an adult and junior ticket for the ashes at the oval next year!