ICC Finances 2024-2027

[Spark]

Is ICC World Cup not that big in AUS, ENG and NZ ? I refuse to believe the revenue numbers I am seeing from these countries about ICC tournaments.
This only means that Ashes series aside , a large percentage of Aus/Eng public isn’t that much interested in Cricket

This is sort of true. They care about the Australian cricket team specifically, it's seen sort of as a national prestige project if anything else. Most of them don't have any particular investment in cricket as a sport, but they'll still buy tickets for international games from time to time and - just as importantly - put it on TV in the background in the summer.

 

[Sunil1z]

Maybe post the revenue numbers so we can see them.

From Cricinfo article . Although I doubt that other countries would contribute so less.
India contributes 3 out of 3.2 for next 4 years .

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Isn't this just media rights though? I don't know how much of a conclusion you can make about interest in the game from this.

 

[TheJediBrah]

This is sort of true. They care about the Australian cricket team specifically, it's seen sort of as a national prestige project if anything else. Most of them don't have any particular investment in cricket as a sport, but they'll still buy tickets for international games from time to time and - just as importantly - put it on TV in the background in the summer.

Expat populations from the subcontinent aren't insignificant, and getting more numerous by the year. Go to a Sri Lanka/Australia Test match in Australia and the majority of people there are Sri Lankan supporters. Probably the same with India matches

 

[honestbharani]

Nah I disagree with that. From a pure profit perspective, the BCCI could gut the international game and really focus hard on franchise based cricket and it'd probably work and may even prove to be the best possible revenue earner.


Thankfully I think the BCCI do have a commitment to caretaking the game as well, and don't want to see the end of international cricket even if hyper-capitalist Americans or kleptocratic FIFA officials would steer the organisation in a different direction if they had the reins.


While I don't think the BCCI will harm the game or intend to, they are easily powerful enough now to do so if that changes. I appreciate that the ICC and BCCI do not strictly treat cricket as an exercise to make the most revenue. Sure they don't want any part of it to be "unprofitable" but the current future of the game looks far less grim than it could.


TLDR
Things could definitely be way worse, so thats kinda nice.

ok.


But seriously, what I meant was if BCCI is getting a good share of the pie, they have more reason to not mess with that pie than they would if they were getting lesser of it.

Also, I do think there is a point when it might become BCCI Vs IPL Franchise Owners and BCCI would wanna keep international cricket relevant and the peak of all cricket as that would be a bargaining chip for them in that scenario.

 

[Sunil1z]

ok.


But seriously, what I meant was if BCCI is getting a good share of the pie, they have more reason to not mess with that pie than they would if they were getting lesser of it.

Also, I do think there is a point when it might become BCCI Vs IPL Franchise Owners and BCCI would wanna keep international cricket relevant and the peak of all cricket as that would be a bargaining chip for them in that scenario.

Yeah , IPL is nothing without international stars . Otherwise it would become SMAT .

 

[Daemon]

In those two the teams themselves actually own the leagues. The BCCI is not structured like that, it's a body constituted of the state cricket associations for the administration of cricket in general.

The BCCI as currently structured contributes near zero to the value of the IPL. The value of the league is in the teams and their audience. Therefore in your scenario of 'cut-throat capitalism' the franchise owners could easily gain the leverage to radically restructure the administration of the league that would greatly reduce the power and revenue that the current administrative structure controls.

Yeah this is correct imo (I disagree that the BCCI contributes zero value but minor point).

If interest in international cricket started dwindling in favour of the IPL, they gain negotiating power and simply break out of the current structure. In practice it’d be extremely difficult because the BCCI/state associations would still hold some key cards up their sleeve like stadiums, grassroots cricket, legislation that favours them (and so forth - thanks gotspin).

Disrupting this structure is probably as hard as it is to do the reverse to football. No chance it happens in the next decade as someone mentioned earlier imo.

There’s definitely going to be sustained pressure from these leagues to grow simply because they have to hit the (probably) ridiculous forecasts they’ve promised shareholders - they’re already looking outside India now for growth. I don’t think they’d rock the boat too drastically though until we see that growth flattening out because they already have success and don’t need the risk (may not be the case for the newer teams that purchased at insane valuations).

Once it’s not growing quickly enough and they see international cricket as a barrier to that, they might make the move to cannibalise international cricket entirely. But that’s a long way from now, if at all imo.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

There’s definitely going to be sustained pressure from these leagues to grow simply because they have to hit the (probably) ridiculous forecasts they’ve promised shareholders - they’re already looking outside India now for growth. I don’t think they’d rock the boat too drastically though until we see that growth flattening out because they already have success and don’t need the risk (may not be the case for the newer teams that purchased at insane valuations).

I love capitalism.

 

[Spark]

There’s definitely going to be sustained pressure from these leagues to grow simply because they have to hit the (probably) ridiculous forecasts they’ve promised shareholders - they’re already looking outside India now for growth. I don’t think they’d rock the boat too drastically though until we see that growth flattening out because they already have success and don’t need the risk (may not be the case for the newer teams that purchased at insane valuations).

This is why I think there's going to be a big play for a US SA20 style IPL clone soon. That's by far the biggest pot of untapped money out there, stuff like the UAE or Saudi T20 league is just ridiculous and will turn the whole thing into a pyramid scheme that will collapse the moment someone pokes it too hard with a stick.

The thing is, as we saw with the European Super League, it's not as simple as "money talks" all the time, especially when you start messing with teams and sports with national cultural significance that governments will be extremely pressured to step in and protect somehow. So I think the projections of endless shareholder growth are... dubious.

 

[Flem274*]

I also think the admins if today are underestimating the market of tomorrow. There's a push among the younger folk away from consumption and towards authenticity. That may change as they age, but culturally they like pot plants more than Instagram. There's also complaints across multiple sports about saturation.

The IPL will probably be fine for decades due to the sheer scale of the right market demographic (30+ adults) and absence of internal competition but I doubt the BBL, the hundred etc will cope culturally with the massive extended seasons their boards would love.

I'd be verrrry interested to know if NZCs cynical splurge on t20 met financial expectations. No one irl cared.

 

[Athlai]

ok.


But seriously, what I meant was if BCCI is getting a good share of the pie, they have more reason to not mess with that pie than they would if they were getting lesser of it.

Also, I do think there is a point when it might become BCCI Vs IPL Franchise Owners and BCCI would wanna keep international cricket relevant and the peak of all cricket as that would be a bargaining chip for them in that scenario.

The BCCI made 6.5 billion USD on their IPL media rights. I dont think this slice of pie is quite as vital as you might think.

 

[Starfighter]

Yeah this is correct imo (I disagree that the BCCI contributes zero value but minor point).

If interest in international cricket started dwindling in favour of the IPL, they gain negotiating power and simply break out of the current structure. In practice it’d be extremely difficult because the BCCI/state associations would still hold some key cards up their sleeve like stadiums, grassroots cricket, legislation that favours them (and so forth - thanks gotspin).

Disrupting this structure is probably as hard as it is to do the reverse to football. No chance it happens in the next decade as someone mentioned earlier imo.

I was going to talk about this in my reply to Athlai (where he basically admitted I was right while saying I was wrong) (Athlai - the value of the media rights is generated by the competition, which is constituted by the teams).

This is an interesting issue. The structure is a legacy of cricket's regional traditions stemming from the English county basis, unlike the city/locality basis of football. Boards can and do change in structure - Cricket Australia being a prominent example, but the BCCI has the unusual obstacle of needing the supreme court to approve changes to its constitution. I think the IPL team owners would be far more likely to use the existing structure and change it bit by bit. I doubt the revenue distribution from the IPL is a constitutional matter, so it would be more getting the right people and money in the right places. As the IPL teams get wealthier the power that the state associations will have on venues and pathways will erode as well.

The evolution of the soft power created by the influx of money into the IPL where the key issues rise. Currently (and sorry if this offends anyone) there seems to be an artificiality in the IPL. Chennai and Rajasthan were suspended with little monetary impact (though I believe there was also judicial involvement in this) as if it didn't matter too much what the teams were so long as the players were who the audience wanted. In comparison English football clubs had a century of history before the Premier League. If the audience loyalties become more prominent and organic this would increase the power of the IPL teams beyond what simply having more money would do, as you couldn't take action against teams without risking revenue.

Of course a good example of soft power is the subject of this thread. The rights in question here are the ICC's, not the BCCI's. In theory the BCCI's vote has the same value as anyone else's. But bilateral tours by India are the major revenue generator for most boards, and if the BCCI were really upset they could threaten withholding participation from major tournaments. They hold great soft power and are able to use it when putting forward this argument that they deserve the lion's share of the pie. If the IPL greatly increases in value then the teams collectively may similarly develop soft power over the BCCI, though as they would lose out from withholding participation it won't be as great or direct. Chipping away at the BCCI's share would be practically inevitable.

 

[honestbharani]

I love capitalism.

He is a freaking consultant.

 

[Starfighter]

So I think the projections of endless shareholder growth are... dubious.

Maybe they can get the government and central bank to assist them like in Western countries.

 

[honestbharani]

The BCCI made 6.5 billion USD on their IPL media rights. I dont think this slice of pie is quite as vital as you might think.

I dunno. Like I said, I still think one needs the other to sustain.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I love capitalism.

This but unironically

 

[Spark]

The BCCI definitely has all sorts of levers it could pull as leverage over the IPL. At the most extreme level they could ICLise it by excluding players from national eligibility. If Starfighter is right and the true audience loyalty is to the players, not the franchises, then that would kill the IPL - in favour of what is presumably a IPL clone with much more explicit BCCI control - overnight. Obviously that's the "big red button" but there's other things that could be done well; soft power goes both ways.

 

[Flem274*]

Anecdotally, friends who watch it (exclusively indian kiwis) are definitely attached to their franchise but from how they discuss the games they'd be gutted if their star players weren't allowed to compete and i suspect (but do not know for certain) would just trim their support list back to india and nz imo.

having your favourite indian and kiwi (or wherever) players in the same team is pretty cool and i can see it being the major draw for overseas based viewers. i still have soft spots for murali vijay, graeme napier and mahela jayawardene because they played for my team and ben stokes and brett lee proved they're ***** because they played for canterbury and northern respectively.

i'll have to bring it up with them next time.

 

[Sunil1z]

The BCCI definitely has all sorts of levers it could pull as leverage over the IPL. At the most extreme level they could ICLise it by excluding players from national eligibility. If Starfighter is right and the true audience loyalty is to the players, not the franchises, then that would kill the IPL - in favour of what is presumably a IPL clone with much more explicit BCCI control - overnight. Obviously that's the "big red button" but there's other things that could be done well; soft power goes both ways.

I don’t support any franchise or player . But still watch it because IPL is better than the next available source of entertainment. So as long as good Indian and international players are available, there would always be demand for IPL because Cricket has near monopoly in India.

What would kill IPL imo is
1. If Good Indian and international cricketers stop participating
2. They increase duration of IPL because then there would be Cricket fatigue.

 

[Spark]

I don’t support any franchise or player . But still watch it because IPL is better than the next available source of entertainment. So as long as good Indian and international players are available, there would always be demand for IPL because Cricket has near monopoly in India.

What would kill IPL imo is
1. If Good Indian and international cricketers stop participating
2. They increase duration of IPL because then there would be Cricket fatigue.

There will definitely always be a franchise based Indian T20 league, absolutely - it's just whether it's the Indian Premier League, with its ownership and corporate structure, that fills that role specifically.