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County Resistance To T20 Tournament Collapses After £1.3M Funding Promise

Resistance to the proposed eight-team, city-based Twenty20 competition "has collapsed among the 18 first-class counties, who have all signed a media rights deed" enabling the England & Wales Cricket Board to sell the broadcasting of the tournament on their behalf, according to Mike Atherton of the LONDON TIMES. The competition is "a done deal" and TV negotiations are "set to begin in earnest." In return for this, and in addition to the £1.3M ($1.6M) a year that has been promised to each county for the first five years of the new tournament that will launch in '20, the ECB "reassured the counties by insisting that any constitutional changes will apply only to the new tournament," rather than to competitions such as the County Championship or T20 Blast. A change to the articles of association, "empowering the ECB to create a competition without all 18 counties, is necessary before it can be sold to the broadcasters, and the fear among counties was that this could be the thin end of the wedge." Resistance to the changes from the first-class counties has "gradually drained away." Middlesex, Surrey, Kent and Essex were among those with the "strongest reservations" but ECB CEO Tom Harrison indicated that those wavering had signed the media rights deeds "within the last few days" (LONDON TIMES, 3/28).

STILL GRUMBLING: In London, Ali Martin wrote while there is "grumbling behind the scenes" -- one county official said that "some of the tactics employed had been 'gun to the head stuff,'" there is "little doubt" they will get the 31 votes needed. And while the ECB has asked counties not to discuss the new tournament, Essex Chair John Faragher "broke ranks" to say, "I don’t deny that I am uncomfortable still. I need to take this to my board and the membership. If we believe the right thing for cricket is to go against this, we will do that." He added, "You are creating another level and it becomes elitist" (GUARDIAN, 3/28).

BROADCASTER TALKS: Martin also reported the ECB is "confident of initiating a bidding war over rights" to its new T20 tounament after holding talks with all the major terrestrial and subscription broadcasters, as well as social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. The new competition has been the "subject of conversations between the ECB and the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, as well as with Sky, BT and Discovery/Eurosport in recent weeks." Rights for the as-yet unnamed tournament "will be sold in the early part of the summer once the ECB's articles of association are tweaked." Breaking up the single rights package into separate parts "could in theory mean the individual values are hit, not least since exclusivity is one of Sky's key selling points," but in the case of the new tournament, Harrison stated a "desire to make at least eight of the 36 matches free-to-air" (GUARDIAN, 3/28). In London, Nick Hoult reported English county execs were told the new tournament "will help cricket compete with football" to be the country's No. 1 sport. Those at a meeting with all 18 counties said that the message was the new T20 league can help cricket be the top "challenger" to football and "attract a new audience to cricket." The meeting included marketing experts using the "comparison of BMW cars with cricket to show counties how the sport can sell its tournaments to different audiences" (TELEGRAPH, 3/27).

'ROARING SUCCESS': The BBC reported former England captain Michael Vaughan said that the new T20 tournament "will be a roaring success." He said, "Cricket needs that moment in this country that changes the way we talk and think about it." Vaughan added that he believes the ECB's aim for "significant" free-to-air coverage is "key to the proposal." Current England captain Joe Root believes the plans for the new competition are a "good idea" and that "it is very important the public are given an opportunity to see cricket at a national level, on free-to-air TV" (BBC, 3/28).

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