Cricket and Finances - The Future of Cricket

[Broken Cricket Dreams]

Hi everybody!
This is my first thread. Hope you all like it, and it spurs some thoughtful discussion.

With the spread of T20 leagues (especially the upcoming ILT20) and the unsustainable international cricket calendar, the players have to make decisions now. Some are taking breaks, others like Ben Stokes are giving up 1/3 formats all together, while Trent Boult backed out of his New Zealand central contract to become a free agent.
Some experts have mentioned that ODI cricket is in danger, maybe bilateral T20I & ODIs should be abandoned, world tournaments should be spaced out, etc.

What do you all think the future holds? If you were cricket's administrators, what actions would you take?

****
Here is my tidbit.
All of these issues stem from the financial point of view. In the free-market economy, players now have choices. Whatever pathway pays the most (which makes sense) and gives them enough competitive cricket, then that is the ideal situation.

The 7 Different Types of Players

In part 1 of this analysis, I explored what are the 7 possible types of career-paths cricketers can take and how much they may earn.
Here is the summary.

1. First Class Players Only (Ranji, County, Sheffield Shield)
   • County Cricket: $20,000-$125,000
   • Indian Domestic: $11,000-$65,250
   • Australian Domestic: Up to $145,000
   • NZ Domestic: $34,00-51,700
2. Test Player + County contract (ex: Cheteshwar Pujara)
   • Estimated Annual Salary: $1-1.5 Million
3. All 3-format player + IPL contract (ex: David Warner)
   • Estimated Annual Salary: $2 Million
4. 2 formats + IPL (ex: Ben Stokes, Quinton de Kock)
   • Estimated Annual Salary: $1.5 Million
5. Fringe national player + 2/3 franchise leagues per year (ex: Sam Billings)
   • Estimated Annual Salary: $700,000-$800,000
6. Only T20 circuit (ex: Imran Tahir/Tim David)
   • Estimated Annual Salary: $1.7 Million
7. TNPL/KPL + IPL Deal (ex: Varun Chakravarthy)

Note: the seventh type of player is a rare edge case – those who get selected for the IPL without any domestic or international experience (ex: Pravin Tambe & Varun Chakravarthy)

Central National Contracts for All 12 Test Nations

The above analysis sheds the lights on the different career types, but some of the salaries are inflated based on the cricketer's national contract. For example, if we look at Ben Stokes vs Quinton de Kock (both 2-format + IPL players), then it is clear that Stokes would earn more by virtue of a better central contract.

So, in part 2 of the analysis, I explored the central national contract structure (for men's cricket) of each of the 12 Test nations. This may give us a hint on why Trent Boult did not sign his national contract.

1. Australia
   • $362,000-$1.75 Million
   • 18 Contracted Players
2. England
   • $350,000-$1.5 Million
   • 27 Contracted Players
3. India
   • $191,000-$1.3 Million
   • 27 Contracted Players
4. New Zealand
   • $258,000-$500,000
   • 20 Contracted Players (19 after Boult left)
5. West Indies
   • $140,000-300,000
   • 21 Contracted Players
6. South Africa
   • $70,000-468,000
   • 16 Contracted Players
7. Sri Lanka
   • $65,000-$351,000
   • 22 Contracted Players
8. Pakistan
   • $72,000-$280,000
9. Bangladesh
   • $55,000-$212,000
   • 17 Contracted Players
10. Ireland
    • $90,000-$100,00
    • 19 Contracted Players
11. Zimbabwe
    • $44,000-$90,000
12. Afghanistan
    • $20,000-$40,000

**Disclaimer: We have done a bit of research based on annual reports, press releases, and trusted sources from each national board.
The salary amounts listed above are only based on retainer contracts & estimated annual match fees. Brand endorsements, sponsorships, team/board bonuses, and match awards are not taken in consideration.


End of Thread.
****

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,
Broken Cricket Dreams

 

[Aritro]

Great work, that's a very thorough post. Just wondering where you got the figures and ranges from? Surprised to see that Windies contracts are higher than a few Asian teams.

EDIT: Just seen you've mentioned where you got the figures from. Still a bit baffled by the Windies contracts being higher than Pakistan, Bangladesh and Lanka contracts though.

 

[Xuhaib]

Great research work very well done.

I think I read some where the elite Pakistan players (Babar, Shaheen, Rizwan) make between 500k-700K $ yearly its not bad but a bit less for your country most elite sportstars I guess they can minimum double this if IPL was open for them.

However the main issue is the blokes just below the national team central contracted players if they do not get a good PSL gig they make lower middle class earnings which is not good as then more of them want to enhance their T 20 game and their long format cricket quality suffers.

 

[RootingforEngland]

@Broken Cricket Dreams

"

1. Test Player + County contract (ex: Cheteshwar Pujara)
   • Estimated Annual Salary: $1-1.5 Million

"

This looks like it should be more like $0.1m - $2m based on your figures for county salaries and contracted players.

All the players outside of Aus, Eng, Ind are going to be on less than $1m from the looks of it, as well as a significant proportion of the players from the big 3 who fit into this category.

(Am assuming you missed the million off the 1 btw).

Btw, worth mentioning that "ex" means "example" not "excluding" (I've just worked this out).

 

[Broken Cricket Dreams]

Great work, that's a very thorough post. Just wondering where you got the figures and ranges from? Surprised to see that Windies contracts are higher than a few Asian teams.

EDIT: Just seen you've mentioned where you got the figures from. Still a bit baffled by the Windies contracts being higher than Pakistan, Bangladesh and Lanka contracts though.

Thank you! Yes, I was as well when researching this topic. So it turns out that West Indies pay their players more, but they do not have as many contracted players as Pakistan does (although it seems that the contract list is increasing per year). So I think WI has less overall revenue but are trying to keep their main players, and hence are paying them a bit more.

*Also, I am unable to post links for some reason, but I have written two articles on my website about this. Until I figure out how to put links on the forum, here is the name of the title:

The first one is called How Much Do Different Types of Cricketers Earn Per Year (2022)? Salaries of Pujara, Stokes, Warner, Billings, Tim David Revealed!
If you google this, this should be the first item (brokencricketdreams is also the name of the site)

 

[Broken Cricket Dreams]

Great research work very well done.

I think I read some where the elite Pakistan players (Babar, Shaheen, Rizwan) make between 500k-700K $ yearly its not bad but a bit less for your country most elite sportstars I guess they can minimum double this if IPL was open for them.

However the main issue is the blokes just below the national team central contracted players if they do not get a good PSL gig they make lower middle class earnings which is not good as then more of them want to enhance their T 20 game and their long format cricket quality suffers.

Right. The salary is based only on retainer contracts/match fees. On top of that, PSL & other leagues plus sponsorships might push the elite players to that overall amount.

And you're absolutely right about the second point there.

 

[Broken Cricket Dreams]

@Broken Cricket Dreams

"

1. Test Player + County contract (ex: Cheteshwar Pujara)
   • Estimated Annual Salary: $1-1.5 Million

"

This looks like it should be more like $0.1m - $2m based on your figures for county salaries and contracted players.

All the players outside of Aus, Eng, Ind are going to be on less than $1m from the looks of it, as well as a significant proportion of the players from the big 3 who fit into this category.

(Am assuming you missed the million off the 1 btw).

Btw, worth mentioning that "ex" means "example" not "excluding" (I've just worked this out).

Pujara's estimate was interesting. Sussex did not reveal official amounts, but he was a star overseas player who practically played for the whole season. Since the salary cap of Sussex was around $2.45 million and the minimum wage for a county player is around $29,000, I estimated a range of Pujara’s salary. Since there are around 24 cricketers in the squad, if we assume around 10 Sussex cricketers are on minimum wage, 10 more who earn around $50,000, then Pujara might be receiving between $400,000-$1,000,000 as an overseas signing.

The match fees for India's Test matches are about $19,000. If Pujara plays, on average, 10 Tests per year, then he would earn around $190,000 only on match fees, apart from his $381,000 contract (Grade B).

Adding all of that up (plus brand endorsements, etc.), we can estimate around $1 million-$1.5 million as his overall earnings.

Once again, I have an article in detail on this but am unable to add links for some reason.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Thank you! Yes, I was as well when researching this topic. So it turns out that West Indies pay their players more, but they do not have as many contracted players as Pakistan does (although it seems that the contract list is increasing per year). So I think WI has less overall revenue but are trying to keep their main players, and hence are paying them a bit more.

*Also, I am unable to post links for some reason, but I have written two articles on my website about this. Until I figure out how to put links on the forum, here is the name of the title:

The first one is called How Much Do Different Types of Cricketers Earn Per Year (2022)? Salaries of Pujara, Stokes, Warner, Billings, Tim David Revealed!
If you google this, this should be the first item (brokencricketdreams is also the name of the site)

We're having problems with spam bots who just register to post links and not really to take part in discusssion, so that's why new posters can't post links immediately. I've linked your blogpost now and once you have a certain number of posts you'll be able to do it yourself