The Great ECB Bribe

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This is the saddest thing in sport yet alone Cricket. It'll be the end of the sport for me as a fan of this goes through.
 
Brlliant article, sums it up exactly. And if the £1.3m is the carrot to the counties, Durham was used as the stick.
 
Struts said:
This is the saddest thing in sport yet alone Cricket. It'll be the end of the sport for me as a fan of this goes through.
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I think the point is that the sport is ending (in mass popularity terms) without it.

I do have my doubts on the block concept though. You need Thursdays and Fridays to get the pissheads in. Fair play to the ECB for being radical though.
 
NorthCountryBoy said:
I think the point is that the sport is ending (in mass popularity terms) without it.

I do have my doubts on the block concept though. You need Thursdays and Fridays to get the pissheads in. Fair play to the ECB for being radical though.
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Don't think restricting who can see it will expand the sport.
 
NorthCountryBoy said:
I think the point is that the sport is ending (in mass popularity terms) without it.

I do have my doubts on the block concept though. You need Thursdays and Fridays to get the pissheads in. Fair play to the ECB for being radical though.
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Reckless and careless I'd say.
 
My only problem with this is why is it taking till 2020 to implement.

The fact you will be able to follow your team by watching every game live on the tv instead of having to watch a scorecard, then with some free to air games helping to attract new people to the game how can it not be a good thing.

Counties will be reimbursed and still have a good quota of games in all formats to show the locals and the new people keen to get more liv action of the game
 
eddyfinn said:
My only problem with this is why is it taking till 2020 to implement.

The fact you will be able to follow your team by watching every game live on the tv instead of having to watch a scorecard, then with some free to air games helping to attract new people to the game how can it not be a good thing.

Counties will be reimbursed and still have a good quota of games in all formats to show the locals and the new people keen to get more liv action of the game
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1) £15 million loss just in the first year.
2) You're trying to appeal to 10 million people who don't care or only have a minor interest in Cricket.
3) Playing it in a block where test players STILL won't be available.
4) You're purposefully limiting the audience. Cricket is the only sport in this country that thinks it can appeal to more people by cutting its audience.
5) It will probably send the national team backwards when it comes to it20. Australia have gotten progressively worse since the BBL was introduced.
6) Clashing with the CPL.
7) You can't stick a new team somewhere and expect people to support it. Look at Rugby League.
8) It's not going to be on FTA no matter who they try to spin it. If anything half the games will probably be on BT.
9) Where's the demand for this coming from? Even the '1 England game a year crowd' aren't bothered about this.
10) If the ECB have £1.3m a year to give the counties then why not just give them it?
11) When (not if) this fails it'll be the clubs that pay for it.
 
Also any City T20 success will be at the expense of its poor relation the T20 Blast or whatever it's called.

Durham will be a backwater.

The nearest City franchise could be (if Yorkshire don't solve their troubles) as far away as Manchester or Nottingham.

I don't see any way there would be a City team in the North East as they will go where the audience is and CLS is inconvenient for a team called Newcastle.
 
Can't believe that anyone can fall for this FTECB propaganda. Have they forgotten that this is the same organisation who a few years ago were telling us that a now convicted fraudster named Stanford was going to be cricket's financial savior.
 
Bri said:
Also any City T20 success will be at the expense of its poor relation the T20 Blast or whatever it's called.

Durham will be a backwater.

The nearest City franchise could be (if Yorkshire don't solve their troubles) as far away as Manchester or Nottingham.

I don't see any way there would be a City team in the North East as they will go where the audience is and CLS is inconvenient for a team called Newcastle.
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Durham is a city.

Yorkshire will be involved, no matter how much debt they have.
 
Struts said:
1) £15 million loss just in the first year.
2) You're trying to appeal to 10 million people who don't care or only have a minor interest in Cricket.
3) Playing it in a block where test players STILL won't be available.
4) You're purposefully limiting the audience. Cricket is the only sport in this country that thinks it can appeal to more people by cutting its audience.
5) It will probably send the national team backwards when it comes to it20. Australia have gotten progressively worse since the BBL was introduced.
6) Clashing with the CPL.
7) You can't stick a new team somewhere and expect people to support it. Look at Rugby League.
8) It's not going to be on FTA no matter who they try to spin it. If anything half the games will probably be on BT.
9) Where's the demand for this coming from? Even the '1 England game a year crowd' aren't bothered about this.
10) If the ECB have £1.3m a year to give the counties then why not just give them it?
11) When (not if) this fails it'll be the clubs that pay for it.
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You talk about 10 million people with no interest in cricket. What the Aussies did with the BBL is get them interested. A game every night on prime time FTA and the game boomed overnight. It could easily happen here. The ECB's problem has been focusing on wringing cash out of an existing audience, not growing a new one.

Agree with Eddy Finn though. They should negotiate with Sky and try and get it in earlier. FWIW I think it should be with the existing counties too but looks like that isn't gonna happen.
 
Anything that gets cricket on council tele is a step in the right direction. Horrifically short-sighted chasing the cash of the Sky/BT etc.
 
NorthCountryBoy said:
You talk about 10 million people with no interest in cricket. What the Aussies did with the BBL is get them interested. A game every night on prime time FTA and the game boomed overnight. It could easily happen here. The ECB's problem has been focusing on wringing cash out of an existing audience, not growing a new one.

Agree with Eddy Finn though. They should negotiate with Sky and try and get it in earlier. FWIW I think it should be with the existing counties too but looks like that isn't gonna happen.
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Australia is a sports mad culture though. Even if people don't have that much interest in a paticular sport they'll still spend a bit of money in going to watch it. Sorry to tell you this but that isn't England, never has been and never will be. For the vast majority of people who bother to watch sport it's "I watch Football/RU/RL/Cricket and nothing else".

If they won't go watch Yorkshire or Glamorgan or Lancashire then there's no way they're going to throw around a hefty amount of scratch to watch Leeds, Cardiff or Manchester especially if there from somewhere like Sheffield, Swansea or Liverpool.

Do I need to remind people how much of a bust the Birmingham Bears rebranding has been.
 
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It's becoming clear that bribe is increasingly the correct term. According to the Times the Minor Counties will be allowed to vote on this issue and have been promised extra funding if the scheme goes through.
 
Struts said:
Australia is a sports mad culture though. Even if people don't have that much interest in a paticular sport they'll still spend a bit of money in going to watch it. Sorry to tell you this but that isn't England, never has been and never will be. For the vast majority of people who bother to watch sport it's "I watch Football/RU/RL/Cricket and nothing else".

If they won't go watch Yorkshire or Glamorgan or Lancashire then there's no way they're going to throw around a hefty amount of scratch to watch Leeds, Cardiff or Manchester especially if there from somewhere like Sheffield, Swansea or Liverpool.

Do I need to remind people how much of a bust the Birmingham Bears rebranding has been.
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Birmingham Bears' crowds are significantly up in the last couple of years aren't they?

A big reason that crowds are crap at the places you mention is that outside of the bubble of the likes of this forum the average man on the street forgets cricket exists now. There's a massive sports attending culture in this country - the recent Olympics and rugby WC proved that. Cricket is a mint sport and can tap into it again.
 
NorthCountryBoy said:
Birmingham Bears' crowds are significantly up in the last couple of years aren't they?

A big reason that crowds are crap at the places you mention is that outside of the bubble of the likes of this forum the average man on the street forgets cricket exists now. There's a massive sports attending culture in this country - the recent Olympics and rugby WC proved that. Cricket is a mint sport and can tap into it again.
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Average attendances per match are way down. Don't know about overall.

The ECB should be spending money on subsidising tickets and paying to get the sport on FTA instead of a vanity project which is already doomed.
 
brandon said:
Durham is a city.

Yorkshire will be involved, no matter how much debt they have.
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I agree on Yorks tbh.

But as for Durham..... not so much, St Davids in Wales is a City but it's not that big. They'll be looking for big Cities to get the crowds in.

Newastle could feature .... if there was a suitable ground and as we know the option seems to be that CLS is too far from Newcastle to be suitable.

I can't see anything else other than the North-East being excluded from this.
 
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