Money, power and time: Is the future of 50-over cricket on the line?

Sascha: [00:00:02] Welcome to the Dive, the podcast that asks who said business news needs to be all business. I'm your host, Sascha Kelly. Australia, a cricket world, champions in a brutal six months away from home, Australia's men's cricket team has won the World Test Championship, retained the Ashes against England and now won the one day cricket World Cup. But as the dust settles on the tournament, cricket powerhouse India wonders how they let it slip away. And Australian hero Travis Head continues partying. There are bigger questions being asked about the future of the game, in particular whether one day 50 over cricket has a future. It's Friday, the 24th of November, and today I want to know, did Australia just win the last ever one day cricket World Cup? To talk about this today, I'm joined by my colleague and the co-founder here at Equity Mates Media. It's Alec Rehenan. Alec, welcome to the dive. 

Alec: [00:00:55] Sascha good to be here. 

Sascha: [00:00:56] One that I know so much about. Today, cricket isn't my forte, but I'm excited to get across this because it is pretty interesting. Let's start with getting me up to scratch. Australia are champions for those non cricketers. Tell us what exactly just happened. 

Alec: [00:01:11] Yeah. The one day cricket World Cup, there were ten teams involved, four semi-finalists India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Australia, the US, India in the final. India bat first scored 240 Australia chase it down led by Travis Head's 137. And Australia wins its sixth one day World Cup. And Australia won the World Cup for a second time. And in front of 120,000 people, they both stage the home team in magnificent fashion. Now, that sounds impressive, but even more impressive. Its sixth one day World Cup out of 13 that have played.

Sascha: [00:01:50] Okay, that's pretty amazing. And this was a particularly big World Cup. I cannot believe these numbers because it was held in India and it was the most attended cricket World Cup ever. 1.25 million people watching in person. 

Alec: [00:02:05] In person. That's right. It was a record. Unsurprisingly, the previous record was 2015 World Cup, where 1.01 million people passed through the gates and watched it live. But unsurprisingly, India broke that record 1.25 million. There were reports that the final had 130,000 people in the stadium at Narendra modi Stadium where the final was played. That was the capacity of the stadium. Subsequently, it's come out that it was at 130,000. It was 92,000 people in attendance. That's still a lot. Not quite as many as the 93,000. The watch the 2015 final between Australia and New Zealand in Australia at the MCG. But still it was a massive tournament.

Sascha: [00:02:50] This massive numbers and it sounds like by all accounts it's a pretty successful World Cup with that number of people watching. But there are whispers that this might be the last one. So I think again for the non cricket is out there, we have to understand that this is just one of three forms of cricket, right? Yeah. 

Alec: [00:03:10] There's never enough cricket, Sascha.

Sascha: [00:03:12] Is it? No.

Alec: [00:03:13] So test matches one day cricket and 2020, they other three forms. Test matches will go for up to five days. 

Sascha: [00:03:20] And that's like traditional cricket. Like cricket is cricket kind of. Yeah.

Alec: [00:03:25] Yeah. They wear white. There's two innings. Yeah, Cricket is cricket. Then there's one dayers where each team has 50 overs and the highest score wins. They go for about eight hours. 

Sascha: [00:03:35] Okay, a day. 

Alec: [00:03:36] Yeah, that came in in the 70s. Australia's innovation, really. Kerry Packer, one of his great contributions to World Sport one dayers 50 overs. Then comes T20, which is 20 overs eight rather than 50 overs. H Highest score wins. They lost about three. 

Sascha: [00:03:54] Hours, perfect for after work. 

Alec: [00:03:56] Sporting events perfect for kids like that. There's a lot of reasons why 2020 is on the up. We'll get to that. Every form of cricket has a world championship, so test matches. There's now the World Test Championship. The final of that is held every three years. Okay. Then there's the 2020 World Cup, which is held every two years, and then the Cricket World Cup, the 50 over World Cup that we've just gone through that is held every four years. A lot of World Cups.

Sascha: [00:04:25] And a lot of World Cups. I would say I'm a little bit confused, but I'm not alone because there is a view that three is too many, right? 

Alec: [00:04:34] Yeah, there is a view that there is too much cricket being played, that the players are being put through too much and that the fans can't keep up with this amount of cricket. And in particular, when attention spans seem to be diminishing, just generally, the 2020 cricket is on the rise, while one day cricket, that eight hour version of cricket is the biggest loser. 

Sascha: [00:04:57] Ah, interesting. And some national cricketing. Bodies are just giving up on certain forms of the game. So take South Africa, for example. 

Alec: [00:05:05] Yes, South Africa is the clearest example of this. When you say they're giving up. South Africa literally gave up in January of this year. They were meant to play a one day series against Australia and they forfeited it. They decided not to play. They have a domestic 2020 competition. So the shorter form of the game. 

Audio clip: [00:05:24] They've had to hedge their bets. They've had to say, look, chances are, even if we play those Australia games, there's no guarantee that we qualify automatically for the World Cup. So let's take our chances. Let's not play those games. Let's see how the results go with the remaining matches that we do have. And then let's get this T20 league underway and potentially go to the World Cup qualifiers. 

Alec: [00:05:45] South African cricket has really bet the House on this. There's a lot of money that has gone into it and they really say it is a big part of the future of cricket and the big money maker for cricket. So they said we're not going to play against Australia in one dayers. We're going to have our best players available to play in our domestic South African T20 league.

Sascha: [00:06:04] Yeah. Rather than cannibalising their own talent pool, they're just focussed on one area. 

Alec: [00:06:09] And South Africa are going to do a similar thing next year. They're going to send a second string side to New Zealand for a two match test series because of that year's edition of their 2020 tournament. So, you know, teams are literally giving up on international cricket because they're saying that's too much. 

Sascha: [00:06:28] Yeah. And this South African 2020 is interesting because it's not just that there's too much international cricket. There's also this growing push for more domestic competitions. 

Alec: [00:06:38] That's right. This is all about the Indian Premier League. So that is India's 2020 competition. And it is just a money spinner. It has become so big and so powerful that it is really changing cricket. So these Indian Premier League franchises like take the Rajasthan Royals, for example. They'll now own teams in South Africa's tournament. They also own teams in the Caribbean Premier League. They own teams in the IPL T20, which is the United Arab Emirates Cricket League. But most importantly, they have also got a beachhead in America where they own teams in the Major League cricket that has launched in the United States. And these Indian Premier League franchises want to change cricket into a sport like soccer or basketball. In those sports, your primary allegiance and your primary paycheque comes from your domestic franchise. And then there are defined international breaks where you go and play for your country. 

Sascha: [00:07:40] Yeah, for the glory. 

Alec: [00:07:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is another story we've actually covered a little bit before when Major League cricket launched in the United States. Let's include that link in the show notes to this episode. But suffice to say, there's too much international cricket. Well, the international cricket calendar is getting very crowded. But then on top of that, there are also those deep pocketed, lucrative domestic tournaments that are springing up around the world. 

Sascha: [00:08:07] Yeah. So keeping on the story of today, although it sounds like cricket has many stories going on. The biggest reason that 2020 might win over 50 over cricket is it's expanding the games to places never seen before like the United States and helping it grow globally. But that isn't without controversy. So let's get to that after the break. 

Audio clip: [00:08:33] Now the sports one we definitely do not cover very often is cricket. But get this, it is the second most popular sport in the world. And now there's a push to gain fans here in the US. 

Sascha: [00:08:44] Welcome back to the dive today. We're talking about the business of international cricket. Traditionally, it's been played by about 12 nations around the world, but that dozen is opening up. That's changing, isn't it? 

Alec: [00:08:58] Yeah, it is. So very recently as well. Prior to 2019, T20 international status was limited to full member test playing nations of the International Cricket Council. 

Sascha: [00:09:10] So you had to be a test playing nation as well. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:09:13] So that's the 12 like big cricket nations. But the ICC announced a change that took effect on the 1st of January 2019 that granted T20 international status to all 105 of its members. 

Sascha: [00:09:27] So you didn't have to just play the five day matches. You could. Yeah, any cricket was cricket.

Alec: [00:09:31] So while only 12 nations or territories have played an official test match, a five day match, 29 nations have played an official one day match. The 50 over match. A whopping 103 countries have played an international 2020 match. And, you know, those games have been played, you know, from Belgium to Botswana. Mm hmm. T20 cricket is truly internationalising the game. And in this World Cup, though, we've just been through only ten teams made this 50 over World Cup. But next year, at the 2024 Men's T20, World Cup 2024 men's T20 World Cup. 

Sascha: [00:10:11] So many numbers in cricket like 5020 are. 

Alec: [00:10:16] At the T20 World Cup. Next year, 20 teams will take part. So double the amount of teams that took part in the 50 over World Cup this year. 

Sascha: [00:10:24] So not only is calendar space time to play these games an issue in the game expanding so rapidly, it's also money. The share funding has been a real challenge.

Alec: [00:10:34] Yeah, this has become more and more of a challenge as more and more countries start playing cricket because the International Cricket Council has a eight what year, Hun? Or eight what you gather mentality when it comes to funding. So they don't make their revenue models and distribution public. But from reports we've been able to gather that they're going to make about $600 million in annual earnings and that's up meaningfully about they made about $400 Million a year from 2017 to 2023. Oh, wow. So that step up is mainly due to TV rights, which is just the big revenue driver in all sports we're seeing globally. So all of that $600 million, just shy of 40%, is expected to go to India. And that is because they are just the biggest driver of revenue. they drive the revenue, they get the revenue. That's kind of the idea. So they're expected to get about $231 million. England and Australia come next. England's expected to get about 6.9%. Australia about 6.3% of their revenue. 

Sascha: [00:11:37] A big drop off low, 38 to 6.

Alec: [00:11:39] It's a big drop off. Yeah. And then the other nine full member nations of the ICC will receive between 4.7% for New Zealand and 2.8% for Afghanistan. So again, a big step down. But that leaves 94 associate member nations to fight over the remaining 11.2%. Wow. And so there's a formula that they use to decide who gets what, but they all don't get a lot. To give you an example, the Netherlands were one of the ten teams in this World Cup that we've just been through, a former Dutch player and the current high performance manager, Rolland Le further said in an interview that the Netherlands expects to get $2 million next year from the ICC. 

Sascha: [00:12:27] So, look, I'm not someone who watches sports closely by any means, but I know that it must be tough to build a professional cricket team with just $2 million a year, which I guess like that's the natural next question is like, how competitive can these teams be with such small budgets? 

Alec: [00:12:43] Yeah, well, that is the question that will be answered in some ways next year at the 2020 World Cup. Excitingly, it's being held in the United States and the Caribbean, so that'll be big for growing the game in the United States. But what will be interesting is how an amateur or semi-professional United States team goes against a powerhouse like Australia or India. And that's going to be a challenge going forward as they try and develop the game in these amateur and semi-professional nations. 

Sascha: [00:13:16] Yeah, I was just getting flashbacks to the Beckham documentary when he first joined the LA team and he was like, What have I done? Yeah, yeah. So as more and more countries play 2020 cricket and the domestic 2020 leagues become more lucrative, what might change? 

Alec: [00:13:32] Well, it's. Pretty clear that one day cricket is being squeezed. 

Sascha: [00:13:35] Yeah. The one that was invented in the 70s. Yes. 

Alec: [00:13:37] The 50 over game. It's just the amount of cricket that they're trying to get onto. The calendar is becoming unsustainable. Test matches the five day games. Probably won't go anywhere. But something has to give. India. Let's take them as the example. The powerhouse of cricket. This scheduled to only play nine one day matches over the next 15 months. So internationally, it's kind of just been deleted from this schedule. At the same time, there are a number of proposals to change how the game is played to make 50 over cricket more exciting. Mark Nicholas, Englishman, Chairman of the MSI, has proposed that the only 50 over cricket that is played is the World Cup. So there's one tournament every four years and that's it. That would free up a lot of talent space. Former Pakistan legend Wasim Akram has suggested just reducing the game from 50 overs to 40 overs. Indian great Sachin Tendulkar wants to break these 50 over games into 225 overs innings. Okay. But really, aside from Mark Nicholas's proposal, none of them really get at the key challenge, which is there's too much cricket scheduled for the amount of days in a year and the amount that a cricket body can handle. 

Sascha: [00:14:57] Yeah. Which I just need to follow up with a question that I opened the episode with. Did we just witness the last 50 over a World Cup then?

Alec: [00:15:06] I'm going to say no. For two reasons. There is still a little bit of love for the game and we're riding a little bit of a high here in Australia after the tournament. Pat Cummins, the Australian captain, spoke to reporters after he lifted the trophy and said, Maybe because we won but did fall in love with ODI again, this World Cup, which does suggest he had fallen out of love with them at some point. 

Sascha: [00:15:26] Yeah, true. 

Alec: [00:15:28] But there's still a little bit of love. But the second reason, the more important reason. We're a business podcast here. And let's be honest, money talks in international sport. The second reason we haven't seen the last World Cup is because the ICC is massive TV rights deal. The one that took their annual earnings from 400 million to 600 million. That included the 2027 World Cup in the deal. So they're going to hang on until then because their broadcasters expect them to. The 2031 World Cup is scheduled for India and Bangladesh. So it's likely India won't want to be the host nation that saw it die. But if I was a betting man, I would say after 2031, it's going to be very unlikely. 

Sascha: [00:16:13] Yeah. I've got to say, what I'm most impressed with is just how much cricket loves testing new ideas and evolution, like as a sport. There's not many that have just played with the format so much. 

Alec: [00:16:25] Well, Sascha there's a whole other conversation around England experimenting with the hundred, which is another format and T10 cricket.

Sascha: [00:16:34] Yeah. Okay, let's put a pin in that. And maybe that could be another episode. Let's leave it there for today. Thanks so much for joining us. If you want to help support us on the dive and jump in your podcast player right now, give us a five star review. Really makes all the difference in terms of getting us in front of new and fresh is. Alec, thanks so much for joining me today. 

Alec: [00:16:51] Sascha, Thanks for indulging my cricket fandom. 

Sascha: [00:16:54] Anytime.