H*ndred Managing Director Stands Down

 

23/05

Sanjay Patel moves on

07/05

IPL the problem, not that cricinfo would ever say that:

Ian Chappell

Moody and Shastri

04/05

The Future's bleak, if Badale has his way

30/04

TV habits have changed and particularly with the younger audiences. Do kids sit downstairs, eyes glued to whatever is being put out by BBC and ITV anymore on the "big TV"? There are hundreds of free TV channels out there and not all are Antique, House in the Country One Show crap. 

Sky remains the biggest obsticle to growth in terms of interest in cricket, in my opinion.

mail report

28/04

mail report

Already Losing Money, So Throw More Money At It - Key

25/04

Already with astronomical losses, Rob Key would like to "invest" more money in this failed project.

The H*ndrd cheerleaders, aka the BBC, report

11/04

APL Timetable clash with The H*ndred

The Times Elizabeth Ammon 05 April

The Hundred Loses £9m - Report

The Hundred made a loss of £9 million in its first two years, according to a new report into the financial health of English cricket.

The 120-page report by Fanos Hira, a chartered accountant who is chairman of Worcestershire, highlights the precarious financial state of the English game. The report, seen by The Times, was compiled with the help of the new ECB chairman, Richard Thompson, and casts doubt on the ECB’s claim last year — before Thompson’s arrival — that the Hundred made an £11.8 million profit.

The Hundred was launched in 2021 using a new 100-ball format that is not used in any other competition in the world. Its introduction in the prime part of the English cricketing summer has been controversial with traditionalists who revere the County Championship but the ECB has insisted it is designed to widen cricket’s appeal and help secure the game’s financial future.

It had been due to launch in 2020 but was delayed a year by Covid, meaning the ECB incurred some set-up costs it was then unable to recoup. The report says the new tournament has cost about £60 million since its inception.

The £9 million loss does not include the additional £24.7 million paid by the ECB to the counties and MCC, part of the original deal the counties made in 2019 in return for supporting the new competition. The ECB does not consider that to be a cost of the Hundred; if it did, the total losses from the first two years of the competition would be £37.1 million.

Some of the difference between the ECB’s claim that the tournament has made £11 million profit and Hira’s report calculating a £9 million loss can be attributed to discrepancies between what is considered a direct cost of the Hundred, and what is accounted for as a wider ECB cost.

County chiefs are concerned about the true state of the tournament’s finances, given they were shown a report in 2016 — produced by the Deloitte accounting firm — that predicted a new eight-team “franchise” tournament would make about £27 million profit a year. It was on the basis of this report that many county chiefs felt able to vote in favour of the new tournament. They are now questioning why this predicted profit has not come to fruition.

The report also identifies a significant increase in central staffing costs at the ECB, some of which can be accounted for by the increase in the value of player contracts and the introduction of more paid contracts for women. The report shows that in the period between 2018 and 2022 the number of administrative and executive staff at the ECB has increased from 108 to 198, the resulting £64.49 million wage bill for those years being higher than the wage bills for players, umpires or coaches.

The governing body’s revenue is likely to stay fairly fixed for the next few years because the next broadcast deal, which runs until 2028, has already been signed and will remain the same year on year. With costs increasing because of interest rates, wage inflation and energy prices, the ECB’s annual profit will be depleted unless there is a broad cost-cutting exercise, which is an area the incoming management team of Thompson and Richard Gould, the chief executive, will look at over the coming months.