Can we drop a franchise/state side?

[Conant]

No. 13.5 million give or take a few

[tawac]

FIGURE OF SPEECH, fellas lets not miss Bvute's point. All he is suggesting is we have as many profesional cricketers in th country as possible. I dont thnk we 250 000 proffesional soccer players let alone cricketers. AND dropping a side is out of th question. Lets build on what we have. The best wil always raise to th top. At th end of th day we can only deal with th resources we have

[eugene]

It seems the focus is just to give anyone a bat who has two hands. Increasing playing numbers doesn't necessarily mean any improvement in the quality of our players. Quality over quantity.

[Boundary]

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm not necessarily FOR dropping a franchise. It's taking a step back to go forward. I'd simply just like to discuss the merit of the idea. I can see slot of benefit both ways and thought it would make an interesting talking point in ZCF. It WILL improve the standard I do stick by that.... But, Does squad strength outweigh exposure to both fans and players??? That's the question in my mind.

OK I'll add my two cents then. Apparently, without disproportionate emigration and AIDS, Zim population could be around 18/20 million now. That's quite close to the Aus population (22.6 mill) but the kicker is that Australia is infinitely richer. The point I was coming to is that Aus First Class cricket has 6 sides and they have a mightily healthy club system. England has divided the county system into two divisions of 9 (it's too politically difficult merge/drop teams and besides, they can afford it). I actually like our five teams, since the country naturally falls into 5 provinces with a major city for each (not unlike Australia) except for the Midlands' Kwekwe/Gweru tussle. However, I'm sympathetic to the six team theory and so the problem becomes, where does the sixth franchise get based. There're 3 alternatives:
Gweru - Midlands would solve its capital dispute but can the city (which is an hour away from Kwekwe) support the team without cannibalising the other's support?
Harare - Player residences and population size favour a second franchise in the capital but there're geographical issues like 'who's in charge of developing cricket in this or that area?
Victoria Falls - ZC is building a TEST venue in Vic Falls and I think that's a fantastic decision but without a side to regularly utilize the venue, how will our players get to know it intimately? This alone is a powerful argument but it's blunted by operational realities - Vic Falls is a smallish town in the Tuskers' sphere of influence, perhaps the ground will be better used as the Tuskers' second home, or anybody's second home, or maybe like a national stadium like Wembley/Twickenham.

Personally I favour bringing in Kenya as the 6th side, they are struggling and a helping hand wouldn't go amiss (since Zim might require a similar favour from SA in rugby) but I don't know how finances would be handled and flying constantly to Kenya wouldn't be ideal for the players I suppose. Maybe five teams was more well thought out than we anticipated.

[eugene]

Outside of Harare and Bulawayo how much support actually exists for the other franchise sides. To begin with, many domestic games are played in Harare regardless of what teams are playing. What sort of crowds do games played in Mutare, Masvingo or Kwekwe get? Are people in Kwekwe talking around the watercoolers about theier beloved Mid West Rhinos?

[bayhaus]

Are people in Kwekwe talking around the watercoolers about theier beloved Mid West Rhinos?

The Midwest Brand has to be marketed to the peeps and the product has to perform for the brand to get into the hearts of the peeps. They cant just expect people to come to the matches. The franchise has to market themselves so people know they are there. I the majority of people in Kwekwe have never heard of the Midwest Rhinos and also those that have probably dont even know when the rhinos are playing.