D Day

25/04/2017 is the date that all 41 constituent members must declare their decision to back the ECB's new eight team T20 competition, or not.

Publicly only 3 counties have announced any kind of objection: Middlesex, Essex and Kent

Final hurdle cleared for ECB T20 shake-up.

Elizabeth Ammon.

The Times.

Monday, 24 April 2017.

PTG 2112-10707.

The England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) new city-based Twenty20 tournament looks certain to go ahead after the board received enough votes in favour of changing its constitution to allow eight completely new teams, and run them as separate entities from any of the existing county clubs.  A change to the ECB constitution is required because at present it only allows competitions in which all 18 first-class counties take part. 

To change the constitution, the ECB requires “yes” votes from at least 31 of its 41 constituent members, which comprises the 18 first-class counties, the Marylebone Cricket Club, the Minor Counties Cricket Association and 21 recreational cricket boards.

The deadline for postal ballots is Tuesday and the ECB is not officially opening any of the envelopes until then, but it is understood it has already received enough positive votes to trigger the change without it needing to be discussed further at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in two weeks.  Only Middlesex and Essex have publicly stated that they have voted against the changes (PTG 2108-10692, 20 April 2017), and it is anticipated that, at most, only two other first-class counties will vote against, or either not vote at all (PTG 2112-10708 below).

The development means that the ECB can go ahead with issuing an invitation to tender to all broadcasting outlets interested in bidding for the television rights for this competition, the other domestic tournaments and England internationals between 2020 and 2024.  The tender document will be issued following the AGM. It is understood that interested parties will then be given a six week window in which to submit their bids with the preferred bidders appointed by the end of June.  The winning bidders are expected to be involved in deciding the locations of the new T20 teams.

The ECB is hopeful that it will receive bids that could be worth between £UK230-£250 million per year ($A389-423 m) for five years from 2020 to 2024 (PTG 2089-10577, 29 March 2017), which represents three times as much as the £75 million ($A127 m) it receives annually from Sky Sports for exclusive coverage of all live cricket in England at present.  

In addition to the changes to the constitution to allow for the setting up of the new T20 competition, the ECB is undertaking a full review of its governance and the Memorandum of Understanding it has with the first-class counties.