A Director of one of the teams who doesn't know if the competition is profitable or making a thumping loss and yet says it is funding the sport! Given the millions paid to the 18 counties I cannot see how the competition can be generating a profit. Also it will be interesting to see if TV continues covering the game when the contract needs renewing as I suspect once the novelty factor deminishes viewing figures will fall to an unacceptable level.
There's some very, very weird quotes in that piece from a man who I've always thought doesn't really 'get' county cricket.
I agree that it's a strange and worrying article.
If 60% of attendees over the last two years have been newcomers to cricket, what has happened to them since? Are they coming back this year? Have they gone on to watch other forms of the game? Those would appear to me to be key questions that he doesn't answer.
Also, aligning himself with LIV and the Saudis seems a very dodgy link.
He should get dragged for that.
Yes not a very inspiring article. Made a bit off a fool off himself there. The PGA tour in particular is extremley well off. European tour not so well off but still in pretty good shape i surggest so really don't understand the LIV golf comparison. As for all these new supporters where are they? Certainly not coming to watch T20 are they. Our crowds this year are probably similar to last year, and the weather has been fantastic. I think for the Worcester game last year we had 18000 this year 17000. I really don't understand why these new supporters are not coming to watch us the most succesful professional sports team in the region with history, and a pathway unlike the100 team. After all it is basiclly the same game only 20 lesss balls per innings. It really makes a little bit angry these people don't come to watch us. Would love to meet one off these people and ask them why.
With an agressive, confrontational attitude like that I simply can't fathom why they might not want to come.
The Hundread "followers" are those that just want to see 6s and 4s with a fire display each time with plenty of pop music. Once the novelty wears off (6s being scored all the time gets boring) the numbers attyending the games will reduce. One thing not mentioned - how many attendees are there on a free ticket?
You cannot keep coming up with new things whenever there is a bee-in-the-bonnet of someone who think we need change. If all these 'New Fans' are appearing, are they just watching The Hundred or other thing also. If all they want is The Hundred then the whole thing has been a waste of time if they are just watching the one competition, then it has achieved nothing at all.
Wasn’t the point of the hundred that these new fans would start watching other forms of the game? It was a way into the entire game, not the only format they’d ever interact with.
Instead it seems to be stealing funding, dominating the height of the season, have fans who are only interested in this single format, and dictating how clubs are running themselves.
The fact it was on in August immediately following the pandemic partly explains the success in bringing in new attendees to the ground. The novelty factor is also surely an aspect to note. They don't seem so set on August going forwards mind, possibly because some of those factors don't exist any longer. Plus it now has to pay it's way so all the freebies will disappear and the brightly coloured shirts will look plain and boring again. The T20 Blast soon learnt that the ideal sweet spot for a chunk of season given over to slogball changed from year to year depending on weather and if there was a major football tournament that particular year.
Call me a cynic but this is all a smokescreen for a cabal of big time charlie county chief execs ransacking the rich history of the domestic game and remoulding it so it can exist going forwards without Worcestershire and Sussex and Derbyshire (or at least with the role of such entities severely diminished) thus paving the way for 8 or maybe 10 teams to share the spoils between
Strauss review by stealth. Designed by Edgbaston. It remains something which needs to be firmly resisted
Unfortunately we have a governance problem.
The current powers that be don’t understand the club’s history, don’t understand the geographical area it represents and don’t understand the Club is still a members’s Club.
They seem to think they run a distinct entity called Edgbaston and that local “stakeholders” are the community living around the ground and surrounding area.
There are still nice people involved but having had a lengthy chat with a senior non exec at the weekend and with previous chair as well as current directors they just don’t get WCCC and have no interest in doing so.
It’s extraordinary the CEO doesn’t see a potential conflict of interest coming with being a Director of the Birmingham Phoenix.
Scary times!
It concerns me that, as a Director of one of The Hundred teams, he claims not to know whether it is making a profit or not. And presumably that means that he doesn't accept the conclusions reached by the Worcestershire Chair Fanos Hira earlier this year that the Hundred has lost around £9 million across its first two seasons.
That reads like a statement aimed at pleasing the Hundred sponsors and saying nothing to the club members. If you have nothing but management gobbledegook and dubious unverifiable statistics to offer, why make a statement at all?
Unfortunately currently I think members are an irritation they know they can’t do away with because of the constitution.
They would much rather members be season ticket holders.
It’s one of the reasons they talk about Edgbaston as a brand all the time because there are no members of Edgbaston.
I definitely think flexing the muscles with the SGM last season was a good thing and keeps them on their toes. Ultimately we may have to say the Members’ Committee is a pointless sop and we want full accountability from the Board to all the members!