ICC funding

[TapsC2]

We also have to be realistic here. How many sports have a situation where players are contracted to their country instead of their clubs? It's a dying model if we are honest with ourselves.

[zimbos_05]

We also have to be realistic here. How many sports have a situation where players are contracted to their country instead of their clubs? It's a dying model if we are honest with ourselves.

Most other sports don't have a model in which a player can play for 5 different clubs in one year, and 5 different in the next.

Players are contracted to their domestic clubs, but being signed to a franchise league is a whole other level of nonsensical.

[secretzimbo]

Why do the biggest earners need the most funding exactly?


Shouldn’t it be the opposite?

Spot on

[jaybro]

India are not in the business of being a charity, they’re in a constant ‘pissing contest’ with the rest of the ICC members.

I think it has to do with the years of being treated like second rate members by the traditional ’big wigs’ Eng & Aus. India run the game now and they want everyone to remember that at all times.

I do believe that the rest of he world needs to stand up to them, ultimately if there was a ‘World Series’ event where India broke away from the rest of the world who would be in better shape?

Would the IPL be as successful without the international stars? Would Indians flock to watch Ranji trophy games like they do test matches?

Would Indians rather pay to watch Mumbai v Chennai in a 4-day game or Aus v Eng in an Ashes series?

I don’t know the answers to those scenarios but it would be interesting to see what would happen to the game.

[andrea lanzoni]

The ICC funding for Zimbabwe is not bad at all considering Countr's population and active cricketers.

My concern is how that money may be used.

It is uselessly obvious to repeat that it is not to be stolen, wasted, etc.
In order to avoid theft, corruption, mismanagement there are to be precise money allocation in which it is the beneficiary that controls the money manager.

Beneficiaries are to be, first thing, players and umpires.
Zimbabwe must be in the conditions to have a pool of at least 200 professional players and a few dozens of professional unpires.
Including some coaches, I'm talking about approximately 250 people.
These people must be certain that they can rely on 12 months salaries. A budget of 3.000.000$ can be sufficient, although not making anyone rich.
With a 12 months salaries, players, unpire and coaches may commit for a 12 months season with First Class, List A and T20 legues with promotion and relegation.

Second beneficiary is viewership.
Thanks to YouTube, cost of broadcasting is dramatically reduced and is now affordable to almost every league.
Problem is video shooting: nowadays cricket in Zimabwe YouTube channel is broadcasted by using a camera that shoots the pitch only. Such type of footage does not generate any viewership: people around the world are by now too accustomed to see the whole action play. So everyone immediately zaps away if the ball disappears from screen just after been hit.
Good news is that a full action video shooting is now available at a cost of not too many thousands dollars.
A decent coverage of televised matches through YouTube will generate audience and, authomatically, sponsorship.

Third beneficiary is national teams. Zimbabweans are to be adequately paid when they play international matches for national squad. If you have some budget on this, you get two results:
1. national team players gain experience and (hopefully) results.
2. some of (valuable) players from the diaspora may find, at least economically, appealing to play for mother Country national squad

After considering the above three targets, you may see that there are still some millions dollars to be spent in other initiatives.

[ZIMDOGGY]

The ICC funding for Zimbabwe is not bad at all considering Countr's population and active cricketers.

My concern is how that money may be used.

It is uselessly obvious to repeat that it is not to be stolen, wasted, etc.
In order to avoid theft, corruption, mismanagement there are to be precise money allocation in which it is the beneficiary that controls the money manager.

Beneficiaries are to be, first thing, players and umpires.
Zimbabwe must be in the conditions to have a pool of at least 200 professional players and a few dozens of professional unpires.
Including some coaches, I'm talking about approximately 250 people.
These people must be certain that they can rely on 12 months salaries. A budget of 3.000.000$ can be sufficient, although not making anyone rich.
With a 12 months salaries, players, unpire and coaches may commit for a 12 months season with First Class, List A and T20 legues with promotion and relegation.

Second beneficiary is viewership.
Thanks to YouTube, cost of broadcasting is dramatically reduced and is now affordable to almost every league.
Problem is video shooting: nowadays cricket in Zimabwe YouTube channel is broadcasted by using a camera that shoots the pitch only. Such type of footage does not generate any viewership: people around the world are by now too accustomed to see the whole action play. So everyone immediately zaps away if the ball disappears from screen just after been hit.
Good news is that a full action video shooting is now available at a cost of not too many thousands dollars.
A decent coverage of televised matches through YouTube will generate audience and, authomatically, sponsorship.

Third beneficiary is national teams. Zimbabweans are to be adequately paid when they play international matches for national squad. If you have some budget on this, you get two results:
1. national team players gain experience and (hopefully) results.
2. some of (valuable) players from the diaspora may find, at least economically, appealing to play for mother Country national squad

After considering the above three targets, you may see that there are still some millions dollars to be spent in other initiatives.

Pool of 200 professional players?
I don’t even think Australia have that lol.

The entire pool of Zimbabwean cricketers fro mall ages is estimated at about 500. So we can’t have nearly half of any Joe blow being a pro

[andrea lanzoni]

Given a budget of 3.000.000$, as I grossly calculated, it would mean to pay 250 people (players, unpires, coaches, maybe some clerical staff to boot) 1.000$ a month (on the average).

This would not be appealing at all in England or Australia given the gap in cost of living. In Zimbabwe, as I wrote, it wouldn't make you rich but it wouldn't be ditched by many players. at least 200 would sign for it.

So most of the budget from ICC wouldn't be touched.
On the other hand, by having 200 people committed to be cricketers 12 months a year, you may reasonably expect to have decent local leagues and hopefully some stars will come out of the pool in a few years.

You don't have a serious business with less than 200 staff. You can't have serious business if people are not allowed to commit for the whole year.

The other, not too expensive issue, is YouTube video coverage.
By televising Zim leagues in a proper way you may get audience (from elsewhere) and hopefully sponsorship. Sponsors are not to be madatorily aiming at the Zimbabwe market. Sponsors are where the YouTube audience is.

Presently YouTube Zimbabwe cricket broadcasting is unacceptably too poor. YOn the other hand you can get decent footage with an investment which is not prohibitive at all.

To give an example: last week of April and first week of May the European Cricket Series (ECS) were held in Milan, on the ground of MilanCC, the club where I'm the president.
I first thing acknowledge that the quality of my ground is indecent comparing to most of grounds in Zimbabwe. Secondly ECS is a meaningless T10 tournament with some chapters in continental Europe.
Given that, all matches were YouTube televised with adequate cameraman (one only) skill.
Average viewership was around 2.000 in a Country, as Italy, where cricket is an extremely marginal sport.

https://www.ecn.cricket/series/fancode- ... 3-ecs23296

[ZIMDOGGY]

Given a budget of 3.000.000$, as I grossly calculated, it would mean to pay 250 people (players, unpires, coaches, maybe some clerical staff to boot) 1.000$ a month (on the average).

This would not be appealing at all in England or Australia given the gap in cost of living. In Zimbabwe, as I wrote, it wouldn't make you rich but it wouldn't be ditched by many players. at least 200 would sign for it.

So most of the budget from ICC wouldn't be touched.
On the other hand, by having 200 people committed to be cricketers 12 months a year, you may reasonably expect to have decent local leagues and hopefully some stars will come out of the pool in a few years.

You don't have a serious business with less than 200 staff. You can't have serious business if people are not allowed to commit for the whole year.

The other, not too expensive issue, is YouTube video coverage.
By televising Zim leagues in a proper way you may get audience (from elsewhere) and hopefully sponsorship. Sponsors are not to be madatorily aiming at the Zimbabwe market. Sponsors are where the YouTube audience is.

Presently YouTube Zimbabwe cricket broadcasting is unacceptably too poor. YOn the other hand you can get decent footage with an investment which is not prohibitive at all.

To give an example: last week of April and first week of May the European Cricket Series (ECS) were held in Milan, on the ground of MilanCC, the club where I'm the president.
I first thing acknowledge that the quality of my ground is indecent comparing to most of grounds in Zimbabwe. Secondly ECS is a meaningless T10 tournament with some chapters in continental Europe.
Given that, all matches were YouTube televised with adequate cameraman (one only) skill.
Average viewership was around 2.000 in a Country, as Italy, where cricket is an extremely marginal sport.

https://www.ecn.cricket/series/fancode- ... 3-ecs23296

I’m only speaking off the top of my head.
Zim have 4/5 d domestic teams
11 Harare based clubs
6 Bulawayo clubs
A few pub league Teams in Harare of 50+ usually
8 school teams


That is the entire Zim crocheting scene.

In Sydney that’s 1/24th of the cricketing population

[andrea lanzoni]

[/quote]

I’m only speaking off the top of my head.
Zim have 4/5 d domestic teams
11 Harare based clubs
6 Bulawayo clubs
A few pub league Teams in Harare of 50+ usually
8 school teams


That is the entire Zim crocheting scene.

In Sydney that’s 1/24th of the cricketing population
[/quote]

Being the case, the investment is even lower.

Out of the Harare and Bulawayo 17 combined clubs, you may take (say) 12 'well organized' clubs and have a 20 people (including coaches and supporting staff) payroll for each of them.
Assume you can go up to approximately 150 professional cricketers. Assume they earn, on the average, 1.000$ a month each for 12 months. Overall is 1.8 million $. A 'modest' chunk of the all ICC funding.

With 150 professionals that play cricket all year round, you may rely on a bedrock from which hoping to have a few future stars emerge, and ........ ABOVE ALL ......hoping not to have Test status rejected by ICC for lacking of a (minimal) compliance.

Holland, Scotland, UAE, Oman, Nepal are ready to lobbying hard to kick Zimbabwe out of the cricket elite and grasping part of the, not small at all, slice of Zim addressed ICC money.

In my opinion it is first to show to have, decently televised, domestic leagues with an acceptable number of full time committed cricketers.
This can be achieved immediately not as procrastinated long term plans.

Luckily, in order to achieve this, there is still a flow of money from ICC.
Use just a part of it and you may soon watch benefits. One of them is wooing new players: if 150 people make a steady living out of cricket, twice or thrice new potential players will knock the door soon and the pool, from which to have talents to prosper, will raise.

[Googly]

What's interesting is the National Premier League Club cricket. It is generally a higher standard because all the franchise players are "encouraged" to play, barring those that are either on national call up or who are overseas playing English club cricket, which means that quite a number can be missing.
Players seem reasonably free to chop and change clubs as well. Whilst any decent cricket is clearly very good, I'm old school and I believe it devalues things if most of the teams are just pick-up sides.
It's basically an inter club comp where they make up teams from the provinces and it is more competitive for sure.

The only thing I don't like is Elton seems free to make up his own club by poaching the best players from the other teams and calling it an Academy. That's just a low level PR stunt that everyone finds unfair and downright annoying.

This comp does have some financing from ZC and I guess some sponsorship of sorts.

The normal club comp is not really supported financially beyond paying for the umpires and balls and preparing wickets, but that adds up. In the old days clubs were entirely independent, visiting teams even had nice lunches and teas laid on. I've seen franchise players shoveling extra lunch into bags so they have something to eat at night. No jokes!!

It's the franchise squads that need year round salaries.
Maybe reduce them in the off season or if a player opts to go overseas for this period, but having to wonder daily where your next meal, rent or school fees are coming from when the hierarchy are pulling 10- 20k and driving flash cars is just unacceptable.
I'd tie the contracts to number of balls hit by batters on off days, fitness levels etc etc. Member countries have about 2 months off tops, the rest of the time they're playing or putting in the hard yards. Until our franchises follow suit we are going to continue to fall further behind.