No 121, May 3 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟢 County Championship previews 🔴 Josh Baker RIP 🟣 Where's cricket's Mick Lynch? 🟤 What! Two weeks to decide the future of the game 🔵 MP for PM? 🟠 Gloucs vote out chair - more to come?
The tweet below was in response to this lunchtime chat on BBC Sports Extra during the Championship games on Monday (starts at 2:35).
It is something that has worried me for a long time.
Simply, no one, bar a few independently-minded journalists and bloggers, are truly batting for county cricket anymore.
There is widespread concern among legacy fans over the direction of travel. Just look on any messageboard or the comment section under any story about the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. The sentiment is clear but it is obvious they just do not count.
We are told that 70,000 county members should not decide the future of the game.
Yet, in effect, it is being determined by a handful of TV executives, consultants and, going forward, investors from the IPL and Saudi. The leadership of the ECB have the final say, and certainly, they are locked in by decisions of predecessors who have long since left, but the u-turn from their very vocal position when they were county leaders is staggering. Yet, largely, they have been let off.
Fans protest put paid to the European Super League and, just this season, Bundesliga’s decision to sell some of the media rights to overseas interests.
Both would have brought in more revenue to the game.
Of course, that is football, a very different beast. But the most active of the activists are in their 20s and 30s, a time when you are much more vocal in the face of perceived injustice. English domestic cricket has precious few devotees in this age group. It has lost the relevance it had even in the 1980s and 1990s. The game was hardly feeding daily back page headlines then but it was always present inside those newspapers. I miss those scorecards even now.
However, both media and UK society has changed. State schools no longer provide an introduction to the game. So it feels more focused than ever on the seven per cent of the population who attend public schools. Meanwhile, between 2005 and 2021, around 70 per cent of the UK were not able to watch the pro game on television because they did not have satellite subscriptions.
So who, exactly, did you expect to answer the call now?
My Cricket Paper column last Sunday suggested academics could assist because they are independent and evidence-based. However sports business prefers to listen to consultants, who also sell a story of data, but charge a darn sight more and are always mindful of keeping the client happy. Meanwhile, sports journalism is a precarious profession these days and it is the brave or financially secure who ask the toughest questions.
(By the way, my LinkedIn profile says sports journalist, academic and consultant. Believe me, the last of those is by far the least likely to speak truth to power.)
A lack of internal and external scrutiny means that the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named can be bullied into existence without proper county, let alone member, consultation and a departing CEO can push through a binding, far-reaching TV deal when he is about to leave without any serious questions being asked.
They are trying to do the same thing in plain sight right now with the sale of franchises.
Members are not the customers of a business or even season-ticket holders of a football club, they are established stakeholders and, if you like, part-owners. There are vestiges of the democratic process but, it seems, not when it really matters. As for helping to create a shared vision of the future. No chance!
Despite all this, legacy fans and counties must accept their own part in creating the current situation.
They must also accept that the consultants and TV executives have a point.
With my sports business consultant hat on, you-know-what has a logic - shorter, more spectacular, TV-friendly, youth focussed, marketed differently and, you might argue, unshackled from the story of county cricket if not the game itself. My problem has never been the actual event, it is what it does to undermine the foundations of the game in the UK, the grubby way it was bullied through and, as a result, the true intentions of those who created it.
Yet as a product, it could work. But it won’t.
Or to qualify this, the opportunity cost will be way too high because throwing money at the problem is not a strategy unless, like LIV golf or Manchester City’s lawyers, there are other motivations at play.
Money, spin and spectacular success for a few stars at the top might mask the truth for a while but the future is being snatched from those who care and placed in the hands of those who only care when it is profitable and convenient.
Also, failure is inevitable because it underestimates the importance of culture and history to the UK sporting population. In the serious, non-sporting world, we love to believe in the social contract that underpins the NHS and the BBC. We know they make us different, better even, though we are constantly told neither is fit for purpose anymore.
Meanwhile, our culture (especially music and sport) bats way above our national average. Our creativity is envied and the roots of our passion set us apart. Especially in sport. Overseas markets love it, just look at the global success of top-level English football or, even Welcome to Wrexham. The fans are part of the product, not merely consumers.
We are told the Premier League is the be-all and end-all but the EFL enjoyed its highest aggregate attendance in 70 years in 2023. Teams continue to lose money but, in the past few decades, the National League has gone full-time and so have many in the regional leagues below. Paralympics ticket sales for London 2012 were 2.8m, the next best is Rio at 1.8m. Wimbledon set an attendance record in 2023, with even the mixed doubles final virtually selling out. This a something you do not see in other Grand Slams. And, yes, the Blast broke ticket sales records in 2019.
The commercial side of sport will tell us that it is the marketing, the CRM or whatever else they can claim credit for.
Bollocks.
No marketer has made me a cricket, and specifically Essex, fan. My Dad did. I have followed his path in all my sporting choices with the exception of my passion for boxing. Muhammad Ali was the pivotal influence there.
Crucially, the Premier League, the sporting institution seen as the example to follow, was not a revolution. On the surface little changed in the early days. It evolved into a success. For better or worse, that is the way the UK sporting audience accepts change.
I worry that the isolationist, elitist approach of English cricket in the last two decades has severed the emotional connection to the game and the ability to pass on that devotion. It has been hidden from the very generation we now need to defend it. At the same time, traditionalists are ignored and ridiculed when, ironically enough, we were the very 30-40-year-olds selling out T20 games 20 years ago. Again, this was an evolution because it was based on counties and copied a short-form that many of us played. The take-up of my generation started the ball rolling but, typically, English cricket did not capitalise and has been playing catch up ever since.
Shared values do not seem to exist in cricket or anywhere else in the UK. The concept of a ‘general good’ has been lost and, in its place, a ‘them vs us’ dichotomy is creating cultural wars in many areas of society with little room for discourse. In such circumstances, when there is no agreed path forward and the future is enforced, not agreed, the aggrieved push back. Hard.
Creating the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named and selling franchise could be a positive revolution if we were going into it with shared values and ambitions based on discussion and compromise. And, crucially, we trusted the intentions of those in power. But…
So could the sale of rugby to private equity
So could scrapping of the FA Cup replays
Hell, so could Brexit (and unlike you-know-what, despite the lies told, that was democratically elected)
But unfortunately, we live in a world of increasingly entrenched inequality in which we are told stories of money trickling down and jam tomorrow.
Yet it just does not happen.
Changes are sold as being for the greater good but that is defined by a few at the top who we somehow believe when they sell themselves as ‘one of us’ and have disproportionate control of the messaging mechanisms to support their nonsense.
So we certainly need a Mick Lynch to challenge the powers-that-be, especially as they seemed to have become utterly detached from their roles as custodians of a sport, not owners of a business.
Alas, it is all probably too late.
County Championship - previews and reviews
Click on a different team for a different preview
Division One
Lancashire vs Kent
Division Two
Derbyshire vs Sussex
Reviews
Sanderson feels Northants are 'well equipped' for promotion charge
‘Sadly, the County Championship trophy already appears to be a long way off’ - Yahoo Sport
A different sort of reflection on a game from Surrey
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PPS I have set up a County Cricket Chat space on Reddit - r/CountyCricketChat
PPPS If you want to get involved in any groups to change this situation. Then there is the County Cricket Members Group and, of course, the Cricket Supporters Association.
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Players - contracts, deals and news
Contracts/Signings: Stobo (Kent - overseas - May-Sept), Yates (Warwickshire - 2yrs)
Marcus Harris: Australia batter extends Leicestershire stay - BBC Sport
Gloucestershire's Ben Wells retires due to heart condition - BBC Sport
Harry Brook: It was worth turning down England for my grandmother | Times
Worcestershire CCC Announces the Heartbreaking Passing of Josh Baker | Worcestershire CCC
Desperately sad. May Josh rest in peace.
And please let’s not speculate on the story behind this.
News, Views and Interviews
ECB gives counties two-week deadline to accept £500m 'lifeline' | Telegraph
Why Saudis and IPL franchises are favourites to buy Hundred teams | Times
Is 18 first-class counties too many? | The Cricket Paper ($)
Here are some questions:
Why have the ECB only given a two-week deadline?
Does it breach any club statutes for counties NOT to put such an important decision to a binding members vote?
Has the flat level of the ECB’s payment to counties for talent creation (widely credited, along with rising costs, as the crucial factor in why finances have bitten now) been influenced by:
Expenditure on the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named
Expenditure on central contracts
The value of the unilateral TV deal with Sky
Why are regulations not being put in place to outlaw personal profiteering by county officials from the sale of franchises in you-know-what or counties?
Do the ECB believe overseas ownership will look after the interests of English cricket? Why are there no regulations regarding this too?
Gloucestershire chairman ousted despite 21,000 capacity ground boost | Telegraph
When Fans Fight Back - The Ringer
Gloucestershire have had a couple of years of very heavy financial losses. But the voting out of their chair got me thinking. Given the lack of time, scrutiny, proper governance and frankly democratic process involved in the decision over franchise sales, I can see other boards suffering casualties when the time comes.
Members have long memories.
As I have said before, the whole membership model needs to be re-imagined, that is if it survives the current moves anyway. However, in practice right now, this much-maligned group tend to be seen as subservient and out-of-touch or engaged and an irritant. As I said above, the current system could work but it does not.
Down with dibbly-dobblers – county bowlers need real pace to make step up | Telegraph
Playing the ball | Nick Timothy | The Critic Magazine
Sir Tim Laurence appointed Club President for 2025 | Kent Cricket
England cricketer Monty Panesar to stand for George Galloway's party - BBC News
I have never met Monty Panesar but I do know many pro athletes who have struggled for relevance and purpose after retirement. It has led them to make some very poor choices.
Pakistani cricketers refuse to display betting ads on County Cricket shirts | The Current
Who Is Richard Gleeson, The 36-Year-Old Former Landscape Gardener Handed A CSK Debut? | Wisden
Yorkshire chairman Colin Graves in in-depth Headingley chat | Bradford Telegraph and Argus
And finally…
The story of this newsletter
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Appalling show of contempt for the game's most long standing and devoted supporters seemingly being accepted without any visible pushback by county leaderships.
When I e-mailed the Middx Chief Executive on the back of the media stories about a Middx move away from Lords I received a 'nothing to see here' response applicable also to my raising of the possibility of a 'mandating' members vote both on any ground move and the latest Hundred developments.
Giving - and accepting - a two week deadline does not even allow for the cosmetic staging of consultations/members forums by the clubs retaining mutual status. Perhaps the only sanction open to members will be the removal of Chairs at the next available AGMs. None of this is acceptable but seemingly no means of stopping it!
The first week in April I emailed Stuart Cain Warwickshire Chief Executive with 20 questions on the private investment in the 16.4, most were borrowed from Alan Higham. Stuart answered about 4 of them at a Members Forum but has declined to answer the rest in writing sadly saying basically they are too detailed. He's offered to talk to me at a future Warwickshire game - checking fixtures - oh that's not until June!