Cricket Australia (CA) Chief Executive Todd Greenberg highlighted a difficult financial question currently facing Australian cricket and the traditional bilateral series model. Increasing pressure from expanding T20 franchise tournaments appears to erode interest in traditional 50-over international matches in recent seasons.
Greenberg believes national team cricket in Australia generates a large percentage of its earnings from international fixtures like bilateral series. The CA executive is uncertain whether over-reliance on franchise-level cricket for revenue could take over international fixtures in the future.
Why is the CA Executive Outlining these Potential Challenges?
Restating Australia’s commitment to ODI cricket
The cricket body’s executive made these recent statements to confirm their position regarding the value of ODI cricket. Stating that 50-over internationals attract major revenue is a huge backing to one of cricket’s most-iconic formats.
Outlining potential commercial future for associations
He also seized this opportunity to identify how cricket’s future could look if franchise-level competitions gain greater appeal than traditional international competitions.
How Does the CA Usually Earn Money?
The CA majorly earns revenue from events linked to international cricket. The cricket governing body receives money from:
- selling broadcasting rights,
- annual ICC funding,
- receiving sponsorship funding,
- ticket sales, and
- commercial packages
Hosting high-level games against major opponents like India, England, and the West Indies usually attracts the bulk of CA’s annual revenue.
ODIs Have a Place in Cricket – CA
Greenberg stated that 50-over internationals currently have a place in cricket and shares a direct link with high-stakes World Cups across genders. He believes work is necessary on the format to define its future as competition from franchise-level cricket continues to mount:
“There is a place for the format in the product portfolio, which is inextricably linked to men’s and women’s World Cups. We need to look at what we want the format to stand for and how we want it to evolve, including the expanse of participation,” he said. He also shared that bilateral ODIs bring in revenue for CA and a focus to create more meaning for the format should happen:
“We’re also realists to know that bilateral ODIs make up a significant portion of our broadcast agreements, so we’ve got to find a way if we’re going to create more meaning, and we’re going to move them, what are we replacing them with, and how do you replace the revenues that go with those?”
CA Exec Responds to ICC CEO Comments on Bilateral Series
ICC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sanjog Gupta recently commented on random scheduling of bilateral series in a bid to protect the appeal of 50-pver internationals:
“The era of randomly scheduled bilateral series has to come to an end, because countries will not be able to sustain cricket without context, culture, competition and competitiveness, which require significant investment of resources, both financial and non-financial,” Mr. Gupta said. Greenberg agrees, and believes the game’s appeal should matter overall:
“I think the principle of his comments are that the games that are played need to matter and have context and jeopardy,” the CA chair said.
Focus necessary to continue ODI development – Sanjog
The ICC CEO believes cricket executives must focus on driving attention towards ODIs through four major levers:
“It’s important to stay focused on the four levers which drive attention and affiliation – context, culture, competition and competitiveness – and ODIs can continue not just to survive, but thrive,” he continued during his latest interview on the subject.
CA Exec Backs Increasing Squads Ahead of ODI World Cup
The executive believes increasing squad sizes at ODI World Cups could be in the game’s interest:
“We advocated strongly,” he said. ” [It’s] pretty clear to me that’s a position [squad expansion]. So, we’ve passed that feedback on to the ICC. So, we’ve got some conversations scheduled with them, and I think there’s a number of countries have said similar, given the change to it, that those squad sizes are important. So that’s an issue on their table,” he shared.
CA Did Not Make Strong Case for Increase in ODI Teams Ahead of 2027 CWC
Greenberg admits that the call for an increase in how many teams compete at Cricket World Cups did not get enough support from CA:
“I don’t know a lot of the background other than that was presented at the ICC conference,” he added. “I assume it’s just about trying to extract commercial value for those World Cups. And I saw some recent comments that some of the Associates are unhappy. I get that. Hopefully, there’s a pathway for more Associates to look at the T20 World Cup as opposed to the ODI World Cup, so I think that’s what the ICC is planning will be,” he concluded.
Several Associate-level nations continue to ramp up efforts to boost participation at international cricket tournaments. These associations request for Member nations like Australia to discuss potential team increases with the ICC that allows more countries take part in quadrennial ODI World Cups.
