|
|
Post by deepfineleg on May 9, 2019 11:58:25 GMT
It never occurred to him that Huddersfield wouldn't be one of those cities.
But Huddersfield couldn't be on of the cities - the clue is in the football club name: Huddersfield Town |
|
Bazpan
2nd XI player
Posts: 191 
County club member: Kent
|
Post by Bazpan on May 9, 2019 12:29:47 GMT
It never occurred to him that Huddersfield wouldn't be one of those cities.
But Huddersfield couldn't be on of the cities - the clue is in the football club name: Huddersfield Town Ely, for example. |
|
|
|
Post by philh on May 9, 2019 19:05:39 GMT
I think these local rivalries could be a problem. As a Charlton Athletic supporter, I would not go to see a team called Crystal Palace Tigers or whatever even it was full of Charlton players. Would a Sussex supporter go and see Southampton Sausages if half of the Sussex team played for them? The solution might have to be something more woolly and not connected to a city, town or county. Perhaps, naming each team after a popular animal (panda, wombat, aardvark etc) would be the solution. Or, perhaps each team could be named after a root vegetable. It sounds like another unconsidered stumbling block as 2020 approaches. Or, do we have to call the year 100/100 rather than 2020?
|
|
|
|
Post by flashblade on May 9, 2019 19:58:42 GMT
This latest problem confirms that the ECB are still making this up as they go along.
|
|
|
|
Post by deepfineleg on May 10, 2019 7:05:23 GMT
This latest problem confirms that the ECB are still making this up as they go along. Are you suggesting these proposals are not evidence based following extensive research? |
|
Bazpan
2nd XI player
Posts: 191
County club member: Kent
|
Post by Bazpan on May 10, 2019 22:07:19 GMT
I confess that part of me is just hungry for any facts about the Hundred, no matter how trivial. Ever since the English city franchise league was first mooted, the supply of information about it has been sporadic to put it mildly. The ECB will blurt out some stuff; they'll realise how stupid it sounds as soon as it gets read back to them by the cricketing public; and then they'll go quiet for about a year while they ponder which course of action would be the least humiliating: admitting they got it completely wrong and starting again; or pressing on - making incremental changes - with their fingers crossed behind their backs as they hope that everything will somehow work out OK. But they're starting to run out of road now.
The team names, when they're finally announced, are bound to be good for a chuckle. Even the ECB will be aware of this, and I imagine part of the reason for staving off the announcement is simply to defer the inevitable derision. But as philh and flashblade observed, the problem with the names is fundamental to the whole project. Leave aside the 100-ball format for a moment (since the New Competition was originally going to be straight T20). The ECB are now realising that the one big idea that distinguished this competition from the rest of the domestic scene and would revolutionise cricket in this country - teams based on cities rather than counties - is turning out to be the competition's biggest drawback.
This wasn't just predictable; it was widely predicted. The Big Bash was often presented as a feasible model for the English city league, but it was pointed out just as frequently that the population distribution in Australia makes city support a whole different proposition. Most people who support Queensland are going to be predisposed to support Brisbane Heat. But a committed native of Sheffield is going to struggle to get behind Leeds. Ditto Portsmouth and Southampton; etc., etc. We've already had a bit of a dry run at this with Warwickshire, many of whose fans didn't go much on being told they're now supporting Birmingham. The ECB can't backtrack on their city project, but they now face the peculiar dilemma of having to suppress the teams' identification with the host cities while still kind of honouring the histories and characters of those cities.
In keeping with this new high-octane, low-sanity cricketing proposition, I always imagined the ECB's marketing people would be trying extra-hard to come up with names even more suggestive of power and destruction than usual. Less of the American Football-style nomenclature, more like the names of city-based adolescent death metal bands perhaps (Cardiff Genocide ... Scorched Earth Southampton ... ). But even if they stick to the template of limited-overs team names we've already got, it's going to be difficult to evoke war machines and apex predators while also telling the stories of unnamed cities without exceeding a sensible character limit for the name of a sports team. However the ECB end up playing it, I think these names are going to be very strange. More to the point, will the Hundred team brandings attract spectators who wouldn't cross the street to watch teams with names like Surrey or Lancashire (that being their function)? I almost get the feeling the ECB have given up on that, and are settling for damage-limitation.
|
|
|
|
Post by Wicked Cricket on May 13, 2019 13:10:41 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by flashblade on May 13, 2019 14:03:04 GMT
Khan accepts that the audiences for T20 and The 100 are different. Let's see if the ECB can generate this new audience - "mums and kids" to quote Andrew Strauss. What interests me is how quickly the TV companies will be able to pull the plug when The 100 flops. This TV money may prove to be a short term bonanza. |
|
|
|
Post by Wicked Cricket on May 13, 2019 15:24:59 GMT
Fb, You are very sure and certain this new tournament will fail. If England "do" win the World Cup this Summer this should spark further interest in cricket. How often have we heard in recent years that something will obviously fail and only to discover it becomes a winner. (Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016 and very recently Liverpool and Spurs reaching the European Champions Final). We seem to be living in unprecedented times when the "impossible becomes the possible."  Let us wait and see. |
|
|
|
Post by flashblade on May 13, 2019 17:28:20 GMT
Fb, You are very sure and certain this new tournament will fail. If England "do" win the World Cup this Summer this should spark further interest in cricket. How often have we heard in recent years that something will obviously fail and only to discover it becomes a winner. (Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016 and very recently Liverpool and Spurs reaching the European Champions Final). We seem to be living in unprecedented times when the "impossible becomes the possible." Let us wait and see. These are great examples of Pyrrhic victories. A victory doesn't necessarily result in success. PS On reflection, WC - you are the only cricket lover I've spoken to who speaks in support of The 100! Your fellow journalists seem to be amongst its strongest critics. Of course their written utterances condemn the tournament in very diplomatic terms. |
|
|
|
Post by Wicked Cricket on May 13, 2019 17:33:31 GMT
Fb,
We are getting into very sensitive waters which I don't wish to enter. I could not disagree with you more. Not so much 'Pyrrhic' but
incredibly necessary to avoid the world entering a very dark place.
No '100 ball' tournament and within 5-10 years Championship cricket won't exist. Period.
PS: I am semi-retired so don't need the journalistic money and therefore I can write what I genuinely feel and believe. I would suggest
growing numbers of county players are excited about the '100', but dare not mention this. Just like those who support Brexit or
Donald Trump. This also applies to journalists. Don't rock the boat and all that in case journalistic opportunities disappear.
We live in a frightening world where more and more people are afraid to say what they believe and stand for and instead tow the
Twitter line.
PPS: Various leading cricket journalists have come out in favour of the 100. They include Michael Atherton, Michael Vaughan and
Simon Hughes, editor of The Cricketer Magazine.
At Sussex alone Luke Wright, Ben Brown, Laurie Evans and Jason Gillespie have tweeted favourably about the 100. The problem
being, there can then be a barrage of Twitter abuse from the anti-100s, so those in favour keep quiet and place their heads well
below the parapet.
|
|
Bazpan
2nd XI player
Posts: 191
County club member: Kent
|
Post by Bazpan on May 13, 2019 22:18:19 GMT
Without getting into the question of how much of the £1.3m will actually be a net gain for the counties, or indeed what sort of shape county cricket will be in after five years of the Hundred, it's worth just thinking about the source of these annual bounties that are giving people fruit-machine eyes.
When Tom Harrison assures us that the Hundred "has been a success already", of course he can only be talking about the broadcasting rights that have already been sold. I don't know if he's just getting some quotes onto the record that he can refer back to in the event that the Hundred is a failure ('It was only ever meant to be a one-off cash injection'), or if TV rights money is genuinely the only thing that matters to him. Either way, the Hundred still needs to do some business if it's going to cover all the 1.3 millions.
By the ECB's own estimates, the annual running costs of the Hundred (£41m) will cancel out the portion of the five-year broadcasting deal that is attributable to the new competition (£200m). Beyond that, income and expenditure become extremely speculative, but in crude terms the Hundred will have to generate £122m of profit over the five-year period in order to fund the counties' annual payments.
Average gates of 10,000 at £20 a ticket would produce £36m over five years. But players' salaries will amount to £45m. (Are salaries included in the £41m annual running costs? I suspect not, as the term 'staging costs' is often used in connection with that figure). I've no idea what kinds of sums can be expected from sponsorship and sales of food, drink, merch, etc., but the Hundred seems as though it'll have some work to do if it's going to fund the annual bounties without the ECB having to dip into other sources of revenue. As an organisation that's burnt through 90% of its cash reserves in the last two years, they didn't come up with the Hundred just so they could give away all the money it makes and more to the counties. Perhaps the Hundred will cover all the commitments made on its behalf, with many millions to spare, but it's not automatic. I just find it a bit jarring when people see a couple of eye-catching headline figures, whereupon they will brook no argument that the promised age of plenty might not actually arrive.
|
|
|
|
Post by gmdf on May 14, 2019 7:17:40 GMT
Fb, We are getting into very sensitive waters which I don't wish to enter. I could not disagree with you more. Not so much 'Pyrrhic' but incredibly necessary to avoid the world entering a very dark place. No '100 ball' tournament and within 5-10 years Championship cricket won't exist. Period. I don't accept that. Indeed I'd say the opposite - if the 100 is a success then in 5 to 10 years your club (Sussex, I assume) and mine (Kent) will be playing minor counties cricket in all but name. And the ECB will have presided over the end of a county based game that has endured since the mid 19th Century. Fortunately the likelihood that the 100 will be a roaring success is pretty small (about the same as the current PM being remembered as a great political leader...) Whilst I hope it flops totally, I suspect it will be mediocre...but the cost of getting it to be that will be immense, both in terms of revenue & the standing of the game. Sadly the fools at the ECB who are doing this won't pay for their folly, and the appeasers in & around the game who talk the 100 up will quickly forget what they said and will claim they always expressed their doubts about the 100. Just wait & see... |
|
|
|
Post by flashblade on May 14, 2019 7:25:30 GMT
Fb, We are getting into very sensitive waters which I don't wish to enter. I could not disagree with you more. Not so much 'Pyrrhic' but incredibly necessary to avoid the world entering a very dark place. No '100 ball' tournament and within 5-10 years Championship cricket won't exist. Period. PS: I am semi-retired so don't need the journalistic money and therefore I can write what I genuinely feel and believe. I would suggest growing numbers of county players are excited about the '100', but dare not mention this. Just like those who support Brexit or Donald Trump. This also applies to journalists. Don't rock the boat and all that in case journalistic opportunities disappear. We live in a frightening world where more and more people are afraid to say what they believe and stand for and instead tow the Twitter line. PPS: Various leading cricket journalists have come out in favour of the 100. They include Michael Atherton, Michael Vaughan and Simon Hughes, editor of The Cricketer Magazine. At Sussex alone Luke Wright, Ben Brown, Laurie Evans and Jason Gillespie have tweeted favourably about the 100. The problem being, there can then be a barrage of Twitter abuse from the anti-100s, so those in favour keep quiet and place their heads well below the parapet. All this suggests to me that the ECB may be asking instructing the counties to express support for The 100, and "persuading" journalists to withhold their true opinions. And when it all goes wrong, those responsible will just walk away and leave others to clean up the mess. I'm afraid that those who don't speak out are likely to get what they deserve. |
|
|
|
Post by Wicked Cricket on May 14, 2019 8:31:22 GMT
Fb,
those responsible will just walk away and leave others to clean up the mess.
Of course, the ECB will have egg all over their face, especially Colin Graves, and their relationship with SKY may be in tatters, yet each
County will walk away with £6.5m in their coffers. In that respect, it is a win-win for the Counties.
The next question is: If a financial failure how might it affect the ECB coffers? There is always BT Sport in the wings, so if SKY are
unhappy then, the pipeline of money will still be in place.
It comes down to how much money the ECB are willing to invest in marketing/advertising the project if in the first few years the public
don't show support. When SKY was in its infancy, Murdoch and his cronies were losing £1m a day. His whole business empire was close
to collapsing under this sheer weight of financial losses. Yet, his belief, courage and determination kept him going. While, the ECB are
not anywhere at this same level, they must give themselves a tight annual budget which they must stick to, if failure is looming, and
have the courage to pull the plug before the 5 years are up.
|
|
