World Cup to join Group A List of Events

WC could be made available on UK free-to-air TV by law.
Martyn Ziegler and Matt Hughes.
The Times.

Tuesday, 16 July 2019.

PTG 2852-14190.

UK Members of Parliament will review whether cricket’s World Cup should be included as one of the 'Listed Events' of sports occasions that must be screened on terrestrial TV after viewing figures showed 8.3 million people tuned in on ‘Sky' and free-to-air Channel Four to watch England’s dramatic final triumph over New Zealand. The men’s football World Cup and European Championship, the Rugby World Cup final and tennis’ Wimbledon Championships are among the 'Crown Jewels' — Group A Listed Events — which are listed in legislation as having to be made available on a terrestrial channel.

‘Sky' chose to allow Channel Four to share its live coverage, its first since the memorable 2005 Ashes series. Channel Four gained a peak audience figure of 4.47 million during the Super Over climax, with almost 4 million more watching across 'Sky Sports Main Event', 'Sky Sports Cricket' and 'Sky One'.  Cricket’s World Cup is not designated as one of the Group A Listed Events but that situation will be reviewed in by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee this autumn, in an evidence session attended by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Colin Graves.

Damian Collins, the committee chairman, said: “We will explore the importance of free-to-air television in terms of driving forward the game and whether the Cricket World Cup, or even just the final, should be a Listed Event in the same way as the football and rugby World Cups.  The audience was very good for the final but quite small before that. It is about balancing the visibility you get from free-to-air and the income resources you get from pay TV. The ECB appear to be trying to do that with The Hundred next year with some live matches on the BBC.  The World Cup is really an opportunity to inspire the next generation and we will also be looking at the legacy plans to make sure that is happening”.

Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson said a Labour government would consider adding at least one England match a year to the Listed Events.  The Channel 4 and ‘Sky' coverage was also up against a remarkable Wimbledon final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer on BBC One, which won the battle for the nation’s remote control with its audience peaking at 9.6 million.

The BBC’s online cricket coverage proved far more popular than their tennis offering, which will hearten the ECB as it seeks to take the game to a wider and younger audience. The BBC’s cricket page attracted a record 39.7 million views yesterday, with the tennis page gaining 13.4 million, the highest for any live event this year.

Graves does a Baldrick

ECB has cunning plan to build on 50-over cricket's newfound popularity. Clue: it's not 50-over cricket

Nick Hoult, TELE GRAPH cricket news correspondent15 JULY 2019 •

England’s World Cup win is the perfect time to launch the Hundred and capitalise on cricket’s new audience, according to Colin Graves, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket board.

The inception of the Hundred has been dogged by criticism and controversy but the EBC is ploughing £200 million into making it work as it desperately looks to attract a new audience.

But it comes at a price. The county 50-over competition will be played at the same time as the Hundred. The best county and overseas players will be appearing in the Hundred, making the 50-over game a secondary competition.

Graves confirmed there were plans to try to make the 50-over competition a “festival” played at outgrounds.

“This [World Cup win] is a launchpad for taking the game forward. That is how I see it. The Hundred is the next part of it. When that comes off, it will all come together,” he said. “We have now got people engaged with cricket. This is a great platform to launch something new with a lot of razzmatazz and entertainment around it. We have got the timing right. A lot of people said it was wrong but we got it spot on."

“People say it [50-over competition] is going to be downgraded. We are not saying that. Other people are. There is still going to be a 50-over competition. We are going to relaunch it as something special. It is not just going to be a Mickey Mouse competition. If it was, we may as well not play it.”

The decision by Sky Sports to share coverage of the World Cup final with Channel 4 gave English cricket live exposure on free-to-air television for the first time since 2005. The next England men’s cricket on free-to-air will be shown on the BBC when England play a Twenty20 match against Australia next summer before the start of the Hundred. Eight matches in the Hundred will be shown live by the BBC.

“Things have fallen into place to help us. Getting it on free-to-air yesterday was brilliant,” said Graves. “To be fair, Sky helped with it. They could have easily said no but they didn’t. It took a while to persuade them but it was for the right reasons and they saw the value of it. We ticked a lot of boxes, but we still have a lot more to do going forward.”