New Zealand Cricket's radical overhaul of domestic cricket is nearly complete, and the six major associations have agreed to initiatives it is hoped will revitalise the game.
The architect of the revamp, NZC's general manager of domestic cricket, David Cooper, has spent the past year trying to win the major associations -- Northern Districts, Auckland, Central Districts, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago -- over to a vision that will "maximise entertainment, high performance and commercial outcomes in our domestic game".
The main points of the revamp are:
• The three formats of the game will be locked into separate windows.
• Associations will be able to sell part of their operation to private or third-party investors.
• There will be an increased focus on promoting and marketing the domestic game.
• Although more self-sufficiency in the associations will be sought, domestic cricket will still be administered by NZ Cricket.
This final point is a departure from the thinking when the plan was presented as a discussion paper. Then, the idea was for a separate company to be set up to run domestic cricket. This was the biggest stumbling block for the associations, which felt NZC was best equipped to deliver the promotion and marketing objectives for the Plunket Shield, Ford Trophy and HRV Cup.
The invitation to third-party investors was initially met with mixed reaction. Some associations, like Canterbury, were poised to bring investors in, while others like Auckland -- whose relationship with the Eden Park Trust gives it competitive advantages without the need for outside capital -- were against it.
NZC has finessed this by saying there is no one-size-fits-all approach. If an association thinks it is ready to attract investors it should, while others might want to "paint the house and tidy the garden" before trying to attract bidders.
The recurring complaint about domestic cricket is that people rarely know it's on. Apart from the T20 HRV Cup, it has little television presence, and the season is a mish-mash of formats.
The new participation agreement -- which effectively separates the professional and amateur strands of the game -- will lock in schedules, possibly for the next four years, in which the four-day Plunket Shield will bookend the season, and the T20 competition will be played before Christmas, followed by the Ford Trophy one-day competition.
In the past, the one-day and four-day competitions have run concurrently, and for the past two years the HRV Cup has been run alongside the four-day competition.
The one-day competition has been at the end of the season because of NZC's desire to end the season with a showpiece 50-over final. But that has been a non-event because a lack of continuity and marketing and advertising spending has resulted in little interest in the competition.
NZC's announcement that it is about to sign a six-year extension with Sky Television is further good news, although some believe that in a rapidly evolving broadcasting landscape, it should not have tied itself for so long to one broadcaster that has shown little appetite for domestic cricket.
But Sky remains the only broadcaster with capacity to cover cricket properly and after strong ratings last season (the Brendon McCullum chase for 300 is understood to be the highest-rating cricket broadcast in New Zealand history), it has paid a premium to lock down the sport.
