You're missing the point where in none of these leagues are actually profitable. Heck, the IPL wasn't profitable in the first few seasons too. It took quite some time for the return on investment to pay off. And this was the biggest league that started first with the most backing, glitz and pizazz. Imagine a league in another country where the demand is not even the same.
To point out an example, the Mzansi Super League which was the brainchild of the CSA was at first an abject failure that did not even get a name in it's first attempt. The second one was the MSL. And I don't think it received a proper broadcasting deal which meant that it was put on Free-to-air TV without CSA receiving any money. The latter actually resulted in it garnering some interest locally in all honesty. The league was also postponed this year because they did not have the finances to conduct it in this year. That should tell you how financially unstable the entire operation is, what every one of these leagues are doing is trying to get in interest early with massive investments so that it pays off later at a future date. I'm not sure if you've read it, but if you haven't you ought to read Cricket 2.0 which explores this concept in greater detail. Most of these leagues simply are hemorrhaging money on an unsustainable basis that they hope pays off one day.
And this isn't just the end, due to this there are people involved in these leagues who frequently are paid late or underpaid/not paid at all. Sometimes even the cricketers aren't paid properly which is when they resort to fixing attempts under the table. The latter hasn't been reported yet in the higher profile leagues but with the current pandemic affecting finances, it is only a matter of time before we get such reports from the higher levels of cricket too.
Before I make my point about what my ideal Twenty20 league would look like, I should put out a plug for Jarrod Kimber - one of the few journalists properly covering how broken the current Twenty20 landscape is.
Having discussed this with the both of you, I now believe that the next big successful league will be the one that actually cuts down on it's expenses and has a model of sustainability baked in right from the start without relying on fantasies like the Indian market noticing or star power pulling in sufficient interest to cover their exorbitant costs.
So what would that mean? The first to go will be the massive paychecks for players IMO even if they don't deserve such a measure. This wouldn't necessarily have to mean that good players don't sign up, you just need to make it so that they see it as a financially worthy investment to represent a side in your league for the period of time required. There are a ton of players in the T20 Blast who aren't quite good enough for the national side but are extremely specialized in T20 cricket that they are worth taking a punt on. There are more in other countries too, someone like Nick Larkin or Tim David (two BBL players I know of) are not world beaters but they aren't your average plodder either. They know how T20 works and can provide reasonable entertainment. Invest in local players to supplement them. If you do want to, you could signup some of the bigger players but they would have to be on a pay as you play basis which makes it unlikely that most will sign up except for the most dedicated ones or the ones who need to spring back into selection/older players looking for a last paycheck.
The next would be all of the presentation and personalities associated with it. I don't think you need the biggest and famous personalities to talk about cricket or the nuances of it, Andrew Fidel Fernando is a wondrous journalist yet he isn't well known to the outside world at all. Hire some smart cricketers who never made it big or the ones who want to launch their own big media careers.
Finally, ensure that the other costs of running operations is minimal. Ways to do this would be with tournaments being more regional divisions to cut down costs for travel and stadium maintenance and every other everyday expense. You could always have the next stage of the league with the best teams being present. This would be a quasi-American sports league structure for the bigger countries and for the smaller ones I don't think it would matter.
India has already started on this path with it's own regional tournaments like the Karnataka Premier League, TNPL and the one in Mumbai. The next step would be to bring them all under a single banner and have them feed into a higher level of cricket like say the SMA Trophy with movement between all of them being fluid. Right now these entities exist in isolation with the best performers in TNPL getting picked for Tamil Nadu and so on. There is a lot of potential here to have the end stage be the IPL for not only players but also teams.
The difference is that these new leagues will need something to stand out. And that is where I think the year long carnival (or at least an extended period rather than the current model) would work best. Imagine having a T20 game to look forward to everyday with your own local side participating in it. I think that is what @Aislabie mentioned in his initial post and that is a very attractive prospect indeed.
To summarize all of this, T20 needs it's own Moneyball approach with a Billy Beane as the visionary to cut down on expenses and provide the same results.
Before I make my point about what my ideal Twenty20 league would look like, I should put out a plug for Jarrod Kimber - one of the few journalists properly covering how broken the current Twenty20 landscape is.
My ideal Twenty20 league would be a county league, because that is the one that I'd be able to go and watch once the pandemic is over. There are, as we know, eighteen counties and they'd all be involved:
What is the format?
An eighteen-round league format. Teams would be paired up to create "derby" rivalries that they would play both home and away; all other teams they would play home or away.
Botham Cup - Durham vs Somerset Cross-Thames Derby - Essex vs Kent East Midlands Derby - Derbyshire vs Nottinghamshire Grand Union Derby - Leicestershire vs Northamptonshire London Cup - Middlesex vs Surrey The Border Match - Glamorgan vs Gloucestershire The Roses - Lancashire vs Yorkshire South Coast Derby - Hampshire vs Sussex West Midlands Derby - Warwickshire vs Worcestershire
Each of these rivalries would have a perpetual trophy that would be awarded to winner of the two matches as a series. If the series was drawn then the trophy would be retained by the holder, like The Ashes.
What about Finals Day and stuff?
Finals Day is currently the best day on the domestic calendar. It doesn't really fit in with a season-long league, so if you want to retain the day you either (a) crown a League Champion, then take the top four teams to a Finals Day to crown a Grand Final Winner, like they do in Super League, or (b) turn it into an Festival Day that is its own competition. Either works, I'm not bothered.
What about the County Championship?
I've got my own thoughts on this, but the County Championship would have two divisions of nine teams, each of whom plays eight matches in the season. This could lead into playoffs, but again that would depend upon room in the schedule.
What about the Royal London Cup?
Not bothered really.
What about the Hundred?
fearsome tweak the Hundred.
Is an 18-week league season too long?
Not for football, or rugby, or baseball, or basketball, or motorsports, or, or, or... Why would cricket be any different?
Is a three-hour match too long?
Not particularly. If the game is on at the weekend, it's a day out. Some sports games last longer than three hours, others last less time. For me, three hours is a not unreasonable game length with which to be bringing cricket to the people.
What about playing conditions?
Personally I'd be in favour of substitutions and batting and bowling jokers like I mentioned in the Big Bash thread (will edit in a link), but I wouldn't insist on them. What I would insist on is a bonus point system.
Win - 4 points
Tie - 2 points
No Result - 2 points
Loss - 0 points
Winning bonus point - For winning by either 20% or more of your runs (30 or more runs out of a total of 150) or for chasing down the target with 20% or more overs left (4 or more overs out of 20).
Losing bonus point - For losing by fewer than 10% of the opposition's runs (fewer than 15 runs out of a total of 150) or your opponents chasing down the target with fewer than 10% of overs remaining (less than 2 overs out of 20).
Overseas players?
Not limited by number, but mitigated for by a multiplier towards a team's salary cap.
Salary cap?
I can't specify a number, but if a player was not eligible for England, Ireland or an Associate nation, then their (for example) £50,000 salary would contribute £75,000 to their team's salary cap calculations.
- - - - - - - - - - -
So this would be an 18-week season, the length of time from the start of May to the start of September. It would have eighteen teams who all play each other, and who each have their key rivals in the league. The teams all already exist, the facilities all already exist, and very little extra work actually has to be done to make it both possible and profitable.
My points from before about the Big Bash rule changes, but reformatted:
The Big Bash has introduced the absolute ridiculousness of the POWER SURGE, X-FACTOR PLAYER and BASH BOOST rules being implemented in this year's Big Bash League, which seem at least three times worse than they are already because they all have silly names. But bad is what they are.
What aren't bad though are the principles that Cricket Australia are, however misguidedly, trying to implement.
- - - Principle One: Greater Tactical Freedom Giving the captains more scope to affect things tactically would make the BBL unique.
I'm definitely in favour of teams having greater freedom to express themselves tactically. The idea of that freedom coming in the form of each team having control of a certain block of powerplay overs is the issue - it is like the old batting and bowling powerplay rule that failed miserablygave the world the legend of George Bailey in ODI cricket. This just ends up being used to make the death overs more batsman-friendly than they are already.
My alternative suggestion: The Batting and Bowling Jokers.
Batting Joker: For one over, once a bowler has been chosen, the batting team can designate that over to have an extra fielder inside the circle.
Bowling Joker: One bowler is allowed to bowl five overs, as opposed to the usual four-over limit.
Both of these Jokers can be used at any point in the innings, which allows for some very interesting tactical possibilities. For instance, if a team has a fast-starting opening batsman, they may choose to use the Batting Joker in the powerplay overs, giving him six balls with only one fielder outside the circle. Alternatively, they might hold it back until they have two set batsmen, and use their Joker to gain momentum as they seek to accelerate towards the end of the innings. Principle Two: Substitutions The idea of having a player come off the bench and make an impact isn't a bad one.
Even though a lot of people like to pull out the "it's just not cricket" response when substitutions are proposed, I like the extra flexibility that it allows teams. Moreover, it is the norm in almost all team sports to have substitutions to varying extents. However, the BBL proposal just goes "here's some flexibility, so long as you only make use of it in the following very restrictive pre-defined way". Which is dumb.
My alternative suggestion: The Matchday Squad
The teams must name a 13-man Matchday Squad, from which they specify their starting eleven before the toss. They can then make one substitution at any point in the match, for any reasons. Substitute fielders also have to come from your Matchday Squad.
This sounds somewhat tame, but the possibilities are actually very exciting: a team could essentially use an extra overseas player so long as they kept the right number of players on the field at any given time. Imagine Mujeeb ur-Rehman bowling his four overs at the start of the innings, then being substituted out for Rashid Khan, who bowls the last five overs (hello Bowling Joker) from that same end. It could really raise standards. Principle Three: Bonus Point(s) If you win big, there's no reason not to be rewarded for that.
I'm alright with there being bonus points on offer beyond the usual points available for winning and losing. I am not, however, in favour of a BASH BOOST point that how teams are supposed to go about their run-chases. That is ill-advised and will make the cricket more one-dimensional.
My alternative suggestion: The Five-Point Win
The points system for a win-tie/NR-loss should be 4-2-0. Then, if a team were to either chase down their target within 15 overs, or win the match by 25% of their runs, then they score a five-point win. This is similar to how the bonus point rule works in rugby union, and acts to reward a team that dominates their match. It also should make it less likely for Net Run Rate to be used as a tie-breaker, as there are more possibilities with regard to teams' final points totals.
- - -
Honestly, I really don't understand why Cricket Australia find this so hard. They already have a league which is at its core an excellent product. And they keep finding new ways to undercut that product. Losing the BBL from free-to-air television was a bad thing. Expanding the schedule from its eight-round sweet spot was a bad thing. The POWER SURGE, X-FACTOR PLAYER and BASH BOOST would also be bad things if indeed they go ahead.
I actually agree with @Aislabie here. Once you've built up the brand or attachment, stars don't really matter. The Indian Super League is the best example for it. My issue with the non-availability of stars is that the quality plummets down beyond a point and T20s are simply not entertaining when you've got teams and players without quality.
I agree too. The PSL doesn’t have the biggest international stars like the IPL, yet the passion among local fans for their team is phenomenal. That’s what allows the PSL to be in the second tier of T20 leagues, along with CPL and BBL, despite existing only since 4 years. Ben Dunk and David Wiese are now cult heroes for Lahore fans
The stable draft system also helps, as almost every team keeps their core intact for many years. And the PCB pays all player salaries upfront, preventing any reputational damage, like we've seen in other leagues such as the BPL.
While the PCB is raking in the money, the league isn’t profitable for the franchises yet. I would attribute this to the instability around the hosting, for obvious reasons. Now that it’s fully returned to Pakistan, i think we could see a profitable league in a couple years. The country’s financial situation doesn’t help, obviously.[DOUBLEPOST=1606429627][/DOUBLEPOST]I mean, it’s not everyday that a two seasons old cricket league, in Pakistan of all countries, gets an article like this in a financial publication of this stature. It’s from 2017, so i guess things have gotten even better since then, pandemic permitting Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
I agree too. The PSL doesn’t have the biggest international stars like the IPL, yet the passion among local fans for their team is phenomenal. That’s what allows the PSL to be in the second tier of T20 leagues, along with CPL and BBL, despite existing only since 4 years. Ben Dunk and David Wiese are now cult heroes for Lahore fans
The stable draft system also helps, as almost every team keeps their core intact for many years. And the PCB pays all player salaries upfront, preventing any reputational damage, like we've seen in other leagues such as the BPL.
While the PCB is raking in the money, the league isn’t profitable for the franchises yet. I would attribute this to the instability around the hosting, for obvious reasons. Now that it’s fully returned to Pakistan, i think we could see a profitable league in a couple years. The country’s financial situation doesn’t help, obviously.
Definitely agree with the PSL being a well-run league, right down to having teams from pretty much all the major provincial capitals (I think - please correct me if I'm wrong because my Pakistan knowledge is patchy) meaning that even if fans aren't necessarily from that city, they'll have a "local" team to support. Of course, the next step will be to get the teams to be able to play in the places they're named after (pandemic permitting), but the fact that the PSL has been able to be a success even without that necessarily happening is extremely impressive.
Also fully agree with the fact that players become cult heroes, even if they're not necessarily the best cricketers in the world: of course Northants have a fair history of cult heroes (just in recent times, there's David Sales, Jason Brown, and Monty Panesar until the whole wife-beating thing ruined it) - but for a more Twenty20-specific example, look at Chris Green and the Guyana Amazon Warriors. And more extensively, look at spin bowling and the Guyana Amazon Warriors. That is a team with an identity, and if the CPL continues for the next decade then you'd expect Chris Green, Qais Ahmad and Ashmead Nedd to probably still be there, spinning a web for Guyana. That is what makes a league that fans engage with.
My ideal Twenty20 league would be a county league, because that is the one that I'd be able to go and watch once the pandemic is over. There are, as we know, eighteen counties and they'd all be involved:
What is the format?
An eighteen-round league format. Teams would be paired up to create "derby" rivalries that they would play both home and away; all other teams they would play home or away.
Botham Cup - Durham vs Somerset Cross-Thames Derby - Essex vs Kent East Midlands Derby - Derbyshire vs Nottinghamshire Grand Union Derby - Leicestershire vs Northamptonshire London Cup - Middlesex vs Surrey The Border Match - Glamorgan vs Gloucestershire The Roses - Lancashire vs Yorkshire South Coast Derby - Hampshire vs Sussex West Midlands Derby - Warwickshire vs Worcestershire
Each of these rivalries would have a perpetual trophy that would be awarded to winner of the two matches as a series. If the series was drawn then the trophy would be retained by the holder, like The Ashes.
What about Finals Day and stuff?
Finals Day is currently the best day on the domestic calendar. It doesn't really fit in with a season-long league, so if you want to retain the day you either (a) crown a League Champion, then take the top four teams to a Finals Day to crown a Grand Final Winner, like they do in Super League, or (b) turn it into an Festival Day that is its own competition. Either works, I'm not bothered.
What about the County Championship?
I've got my own thoughts on this, but the County Championship would have two divisions of nine teams, each of whom plays eight matches in the season. This could lead into playoffs, but again that would depend upon room in the schedule.
What about the Royal London Cup?
Not bothered really.
What about the Hundred?
fearsome tweak the Hundred.
Is an 18-week league season too long?
Not for football, or rugby, or baseball, or basketball, or motorsports, or, or, or... Why would cricket be any different?
Is a three-hour match too long?
Not particularly. If the game is on at the weekend, it's a day out. Some sports games last longer than three hours, others last less time. For me, three hours is a not unreasonable game length with which to be bringing cricket to the people.
What about playing conditions?
Personally I'd be in favour of substitutions and batting and bowling jokers like I mentioned in the Big Bash thread (will edit in a link), but I wouldn't insist on them. What I would insist on is a bonus point system.
Win - 4 points
Tie - 2 points
No Result - 2 points
Loss - 0 points
Winning bonus point - For winning by either 20% or more of your runs (30 or more runs out of a total of 150) or for chasing down the target with 20% or more overs left (4 or more overs out of 20).
Losing bonus point - For losing by fewer than 10% of the opposition's runs (fewer than 15 runs out of a total of 150) or your opponents chasing down the target with fewer than 10% of overs remaining (less than 2 overs out of 20).
Overseas players?
Not limited by number, but mitigated for by a multiplier towards a team's salary cap.
Salary cap?
I can't specify a number, but if a player was not eligible for England, Ireland or an Associate nation, then their (for example) £50,000 salary would contribute £75,000 to their team's salary cap calculations.
- - - - - - - - - - -
So this would be an 18-week season, the length of time from the start of May to the start of September. It would have eighteen teams who all play each other, and who each have their key rivals in the league. The teams all already exist, the facilities all already exist, and very little extra work actually has to be done to make it both possible and profitable.
I mean, I answered that in the post - first-class cricket would end up as eight matches per team. You could make that work with four matches per week that always run Monday to Thursday, with those teams guaranteed to play weekend games for that round of the T20 league. Counties play too much forst-class cricket anyway so it's no biggie.
As for the one-day comp, probably just bin it off.
With eight FC games and 18 T20s, the counties end up playing 50 days of cricket, which is a manageable workload
Win - 4 points
Tie - 2 points
No Result - 2 points
Loss - 0 points
Winning bonus point - For winning by either 20% or more of your runs (30 or more runs out of a total of 150) or for chasing down the target with 20% or more overs left (4 or more overs out of 20).
Losing bonus point - For losing by fewer than 10% of the opposition's runs (fewer than 15 runs out of a total of 150) or your opponents chasing down the target with fewer than 10% of overs remaining (less than 2 overs out of 20).
Royal Challengers Bangalore|14|6|1|0|7|7|
33
|-0.172
5|
Kolkata Knight Riders|14|6|1|0|7|6|
32
|-0.214
6|
Kings XI Punjab|14|5|2|0|7|4|
28
|-0.162
7|
Chennai Super Kings|14|6|0|0|8|4|
28
|-0.455
8|
Rajasthan Royals|14|6|0|0|8|4|
28
|-0.569
It doesn't change much in terms of the running order. I think it may be worth ditching the losing bonus point, and just sticking to the five-point win rule. I'd also be inclined to increase the worth of tied games to three rather than two points if the losing bonus point remains in effect.
That said, if the bonus points were real then I imagine teams would have played differently: if you have eight, nine or even ten wickets in hand in a run-chase, then you'd step on the gas a bit to try to get that bonus point; in real life, there was no reward for that, and teams played more cautiously to see out the win.
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