The England and Wales Cricket Board are trying to emulate the success of the Indian Premier League and the Australian Big Bash with plans to have a domestic Twenty20 cricket tournament with some games being broadcast on free-to-air broadcasters such as BBC, said Tom Harrison, a chief executive of the ECB to Financial Times on Saturday.
Currently, cricket is not broadcast on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom with the ECB having an exclusive broadcast deal with Sky Sports.
But that may change.
“We have no ambition to be the richest, most irrelevant sport in this country,” Harrison told Financial Times. “Have we been having conversations with free-to-air [channels for the new T20 tournament]? Absolutely...Am I convinced they will be at the table? Yes.”
According to the report, the ECB are currently considering a domestic eight-team Twenty20 tournament, on the lines of the IPL and the Big Bash. The competition would begin after 2020 when the ECB’s current broadcast rights deal with Sky would expire, allowing the cricket board to negotiate new broadcast deals.
The competition is planned to have city-based franchises with the big grounds in operation and matches to take place over five weeks in the English summer. Though it has not got the approval of quite a few counties, but Harrison is convinced that they will be able to get everyone on board.
“We don’t control international cricket,” said Mr Harrison. “We can control domestic cricket . . . having a vehicle which drives significant revenue and can underpin a greater percentage of our revenues going forward is something we absolutely have to do to reduce that reliance on international cricket.”
Sony Pictures Network India, the broadcasters of the Indian Premier League, earned over Rs 1,100 crore in the 2016 season while Australian broadcaster Ten has a five-year-deal, valued at $20 million, with Cricket Australia and inked in 2013 to broadcast the Big Bash.
