Posted by The birth of a whole new wave of T20 franchise competitions will bring about the death of international cricket according to every single article we’ve read in the last week or so. We don’t really know about that. We are pretty certain that they’ll bring about the death of several T20 franchise leagues though.
The two big new arrivals are the UAE’s International League T20 (ILT20) and South Africa’s yet-to-be-named T20 league (Update: The SA20). All six franchises in the latter were bought by IPL franchise owners. Five of the six UAE franchises are owned by Indian firms, including IPL owners. All of these teams are now in the process of hoovering up international cricketers.
T20 franchise cricket is taking over, everyone has quite reasonably concluded – because that’s where the money is.
But will these leagues make money?
Another way of looking at things is that there’s currently a bit of a land grab going on and T20 franchise cricket, as a whole, is overreaching.
These are the competitions taking place in January 2023:
- The ILT20 in the UAE
- The SA20
- The Big Bash
- The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL)
We’re pretty sure no-one’s jetting between the various leagues representing multiple franchises simultaneously, so that’s a lot of playing staff to find.
The first two have the financial clout and the IPL link-ups to call in many of the better known international players, but talent will still be spread far and wide and, unavoidably, somewhat thinly.
Thickness is relative, of course, but we’re comparing to the IPL.
The first batch of 21 ‘marquee’ signings trumpeted by the ILT20 included the likes of Akeal Hosein, Rovman Powell and Bhanuka Rajapaksa. No disrespect to these players, but their presence in such a list is indicative of how quickly things tail off. The teams all have to pick at least four players from the UAE as well. Again, no disrespect intended, but the IPL this isn’t.
And this is the thing, isn’t it? This is still T20, these are still franchises, but everything’s just fundamentally less than the IPL.
We’ve no idea what the projected market or TV deals are for either of these two new leagues, but viewed as competitions by fans, they’re defined by what they’re not. They’re paler imitations.
The Indian market is vast, but these are not Indian competitions and so they’re surely just out-and-out less interesting to the average Indian viewer. That must make it harder for franchises to get a direct return on their investment.
Perhaps that’s not the goal, although in that case it seems an expensive way to run a nursery/testing ground.
The same but less
This is probably the one thing international cricket has in its favour over most franchise leagues. It’s distinct. For one thing it has different formats and secondly the players are divvied-up in an entirely different way.
We’re not arguing that this is some kind of superpower that will halt the march of domestic T20 competitions in their tracks. We’re more highlighting it as a weakness of any T20 club league that isn’t the IPL. These competitions have no real unique selling point. They’re really just the same as the IPL, but less.
> Does the IPL deserve its reputation?
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I had sort-of-assumed that the ownership of teams in different leagues would lead to an arrangement where Player X signs with, effectively, the ownership group or (sorry) ‘brand’, and then plays for the Gujarat Globetrotters or whoever in every competition.
Although, to be fair, I spent more time thinking about whether to call the made up team in the previous sentence the ‘Gujurat Globetrotters’ (because of the alliteration) or the ‘Hyderabad Globetrotters’ (because ‘Hyderabad’ begins with the same letter as ‘Harlem’) than I have so far spent thinking about the long-term implications of cross-ownership in franchise-based T20 leagues.
This is definitely the arrangement, but not sure that makes the second tier tournament any more interesting for anyone. Hard to see any colossally beneficial advantage with regards to recruitment for the ‘main’ franchise either.
Currently there are very few players who play for multiple franchises in the same ownership groups. The main example is probably Narine with Kolkata and Trinbago, and this season he’s been joined by Russell at Trinbago. Otherwise Obed McCoy plays for the Royals of Rajasthan and Barbados and David Miller played for both until he was picked up by the Gujarat Titans. I’ve seen talk that Buttler has been signed up by the new SA Royals franchise so that would be another.
The IPL would have to abandon the auction before group players becomes widespread. At the moment the number of group players is effectively limited by the number of retentions IPL franchises can use on overseas players (as Indian players don’t really play overseas).
Just musing, if that’s ok.
Might the IPL be trying to nobble the Big Bash? Not sure why they’d want to do that.
Might they be trying to nobble international red ball cricket so they can take control? Even if some franchises or competitions don’t work, would red ball be able to recover if it was pushed aside for a few years?
Whatever happens with the new competitions in the longer term, in the next couple of years, players who have been mixing T20 with southern hemisphere red ball cricket will have a choice to make.
It could reduce England’s ludicrous red ball calendar though!
The extent to which this might (or more probably might not) adversely affect international cricket surely depends on the extent to which players might choose to exclude themselves from international selection.
National bodies trump franchises for any player whose commitments clash, so players have to hang up their national boots if they wish to be free to play franchise cricket untrammelled. Arguably Eoin has just recently made this call early but equally arguably he recognises that his effectiveness at international level is now diminished but he can still make match/tournament winning contributions for franchises. I have no problem with this.
I agree with KC that all these additional franchise tournaments feel like overkill – although they might have merit within their various domestic set-ups. If that helps cricket to thrive in places such as South Africa and Bangladesh that surely would be a good thing. Like KC I have my doubts about that.
As for these new franchise-based tournaments marking the end of cricketing civilisation as we know it…don’t be daft.
If the franchises run from Jan to June, that covers most of the southern hemisphere red ball season. I’m not knowledgeable enough to say how many of the current Test squads also play for franchises. But what would, say the Aussie or India sides look like without franchise players? Feels like we’re at least temporarily heading to the Packer years with dual formats and weak Test teams.
It’s just whether this is sustainable. That’s why we’re highlighting the likely quality and appeal of the tournaments. They promise a lot, but what will they deliver? Will fans stick around? Will TV deals make sense?
Case in point, Moeen Ali was supposedly a marquee player in the UAE league but has just been confirmed for the South Africa one. There’s a lot of talk and then there’s the reality.
I wonder if the market might find an equilibrium. I might be misremembering but didn’t ITV Digital go under after splurging a load of cash on the Football League? Then reality set in that there wasn’t an appetite for just any old football. As you say I imagine some of theses leagues will struggle to find an audience and quietly fold.
If we’re talking about point of difference – it’s extremely fanciful but it would be fun to see the Championship IPL-ify itself a bit. More overseas players allowed, played in a condensed window, make it the best domestic red-ball cricket in the world. Could get a lot of the best Test players that don’t make big franchise money (we already have Marnus, Shaheen, Pujara etc). Plus more likely to get Indian players…