India Tour More Valuable Than Ashes, Says Collier
David Collier, chief executive of the England & Wales Cricket Board, spoke at the Nolan Partners Sport Industry Breakfast Club on Wednesday morning and confirmed to a high-profile industry audience that despite the tradition and importance of the Ashes, England’s battle with India next year is of more commercial value to the ECB and the English game than this year’s back-to-back clashes with Australia.
With the subcontinent more influential in the game than ever before, Collier argued: ‘Using India as an example, that market accounts for 80% of the TV audience and commercial revenue of the game. Clearly when there is an imbalance such as that, there will always be a view that that person or organisation is very powerful.
‘Smaller nations such as New Zealand or Sri Lanka absolutely rely on a tour by India to generate revenue. For us, in England, we are not so heavily reliant but the value of the India tour in 2014 far outweighs the Ashes tour, purely because of the size of the audience.’
Speaking ahead of England’s ICC Champions Trophy clash with South Africa, Collier called for the schedule of global cricket to be reviewed to ‘unclutter’ the international calendar – but noted the importance of global events to nations around the world.
Collier said: ‘Global events are what funds the 104 member nations. It’s all very well for England, India and Australia who can probably afford not to have them, but the money that arises from global events are crucial to the likes of Scotland, Holland, Ireland and even to an extent some of the smaller full members such as New Zealand and West Indies.’
However, with the inaugural World Test Championships coming to England in the next few years, the CEO stressed that the calendar needs to be closely monitored.
‘A number of years ago there would be one global competition every four years. Now with the introduction of Twenty20 and the impending World Test Championship, that’s already three events in a four-year cycle. With a pinnacle of each form of the game, that is the right way forward. We have to take out about an eight or nine-week period of cricket around the world to play a global event. There’s definitely room to have a World Test Championship, and ODI Championship and a Twenty20 Championship though.
‘The ICC is set to go to market for an eight-year period of rights and as they do that the true test will be the market and whether or not it will sustain the current level of income by playing those three competitions rather than the current schedule.’
Alongside Collier on stage was Mike Gatting, MD of Cricket Partnerships at the governing body and the next President of the MCC, who expressed his confidence in the position of the sport across demographics.
Gatting, a former England captain, revealed the growth in the women’s game, as well as cricket amongst disabled players.
‘We don’t often mention women’s and disability cricket because we see cricket as what it is, a sport for all and see it all as one game, totally inclusive, not just a men’s and boy’s game,’ he insisted. ‘Over the last ten years the women’s and girl’s game has been a huge boost for us, helped by Chance2Shine. Clubs have now come on board too, we encourage them and if they want new facilities then they should be running a disability or a women’s team.
‘Our plan with Sport England over the next four years involves a huge push into disability cricket and broaden the base in the sport. Hopefully by the end of the four years we’ll have 39 cricket boards with a disability programme up and running.’
Meanwhile, on the David Warner/Joe Root incident, Collier added: ‘Clearly we don’t condone that type of incident and I think Cricket Australia dealt with it exceptionally well. I think it’s now in the past but clearly there are some lessons to be learned.’
Gatting added: ‘You have to be so careful when you go into a bar, there’s cameras everywhere. It’s slightly different to when myself and Beefy (Ian Botham) would parade around for a few beers!’
