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Cricket players’ body seeks football-like international window
WCA's report proposes a core international cricket window, suggesting restructuring of bilateral matches and a new revenue distribution model for growth.
Mumbai: World Cricketers Association (WCA), the players’ body, has come out with a Global Game Structure Report after speaking with 64 stakeholders among players, administrators, commercial and media partners.
A key suggestion of the body’s sub-committee is to replace the bilateral calendar with a core international window, say, for 21 days, which should be implemented to cover one match per format against all other teams culminating in qualification for existing ICC events across two-year cycles.
“The majority of the calendar remains free for the market to continue to evolve and innovate, including flexibility for both T20 Leagues and longer international series where viable,” says the report.
Input from no Indian player could be taken and WCA CEO Tom Moffat accepted that as an inherent shortcoming of the exercise. “They’re not part of our collective, unfortunately. We’d love to hear them and the rest of the cricket world to hear their views collectively,” Moffat told HT in an interview.
India does not have a players’ body and most of the players’ earning comes from IPL, the only T20 league they feature in. Outside the two IPL months, around 25 centrally contracted players are on India duty across formats and are well compensated.
Bilateral restructuring
According to the report, a restructuring of the bilateral window is necessary. “The calendar across domestic leagues and international cricket is really hard to follow. It’s congested, especially at the top of the men’s game and there’s really no structure or rhythm to the annual cricket calendar,” it says.
“When we turned our mind to how you can potentially start to address that problem, most people thought that domestic leagues and international cricket should coexist and the only credible way is through some kind of scheduling window system and central management of the whole calendar,” said Moffat. “There’s precedent for that in other international sports like football and basketball.”
But hasn’t cricket’s monetisation traditionally been centred around internationals? “Absolutely. But that is changing and what the report talks about is that while there’s significant growth in domestic leagues and in ICC events in terms of the value they generate, bilateral international cricket in most countries is struggling and at risk,” said Moffat.
Such restructuring of schedules would require heavy funding else it would lead to losses for most boards. None of the 12 Test playing nations outside the Big Three – India, England and Australia – have self-sufficient revenue models. The report recommends the creation of “a centralized Global Growth and Development Fund”.
“One recommendation talks about leveraging rights for that core international cricket centrally as cricket already does in ICC events. It would mean you can have competition structures that have some integrity. The WTC (World Test Championship) has been a really positive step forward but at the moment there’s no requirement for every team to play every other team. It would also create consistency across formats, which we don’t currently have,” said Moffat.
Revenue distribution
Whether the top nations would want to give up complete independence of monetising bilateral cricket is another matter. The report also suggests restructuring the ICC revenue distribution model in line with international precedents – “a minimum 2% and maximum 10% for the top 24 countries, and a minimum 10% distribution collectively for countries 25+”.
Would a 10% take home for BCCI while the Indian market contributes 90% to ICC revenue and 2% for 24th placed associate Kuwait sit well? “India is at the heart of and contributes a massive amount to our sport and that value clearly needs to continue to be recognised. The recommendations don’t talk about centrally funding the whole sport,” said Moffat.
“They talk about leveraging and funding the minimum level of international cricket that’s required to have improved competition structures. If cricket wants to grow and be competitive in more than just a few countries, the only central lever to help to achieve that is by investing in that financially. You can’t have player drafts or auctions in international cricket to spread talent, for example.”
“The percentages given in the report are examples modelled on other international sports. The broadcasters have raised the issue of lack of depth and competitiveness in international cricket. The report points out that it is in everyone’s interests, including the big countries, to address that. But ultimately, the level (of revenue share) is clearly for the game to debate,” he added.
If not the Indian players, were IPL franchises, who have a substantial investment in leagues around the world, spoken with? “Yes, there was some consultation there,” said Moffat. “And across the leagues, not just IPL. So, I think there were three or four leagues who were consulted with. I don’t think there’s any point in trying to pretend like they’re not going to drive a lot of the future direction of sport.”
