ENGLAND NEWS

Cricket in England has reached a watershed moment, feels ECB

• Published on

It is widely reported that twice as many of the young people surveyed recognised John Cena than Alastair Cook. © Cricbuzz

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) believes that cricket in England has reached a "watershed moment" as the board looks to establish a new T20 competition against a backdrop of cricket's declining popularity and participation amongst children and teenagers, with the ECB's Chief Operating Officer Gordon Hollins admitting "it would be negligent for us to do nothing knowing what we know."

Hollins, alongside the ECB Chairman, Colin Graves and Head of Commercial Partnerships, Mike Fordham made a presentation at a member's forum for Leicestershire in which they revealed the results of market research before divulging some details of their new T20 competition which they are planning to launch in 2020. Similar sentiments were also expressed at a member's forum at Sussex where ECB Commercial Director, Sanjay Patel, Head of Marketing, Rob Calder and Fordham appeared.

At the Leicestershire forum, Fordham drew comparisons between the current situation and that which faced the game at the start of the 21st century before the introduction of the T20 format in 2003. The ECB hopes that a new T20 competition marketed at families will help revive the popularity of the sport.

Based on qualitative and quantitative data of about 7,000 teenagers and young people in England and Wales, Fordham said that only 2% of young people between the ages of 7 and 15 rated cricket as their favourite sport and only 7% ranked cricket in their top two sports. Among those not interested in cricket, the most frequently used term to describe it was 'boring'.

Twice as many teenagers said they are more interested in attending Aviva Premiership Rugby and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) than cricket and nearly four times as many teenagers are interested in following or attending the NBA, Six Nations or Formula 1. At the forum, Fordham retold the statistic that has been widely reported lately that twice as many of the young people surveyed recognised the WWE wrestler, John Cena than England's Test captain, Alastair Cook.

Cricket's unpopularity amongst young people was reflected in ticket sales this season with only 5% of people in the grounds for international matches on junior tickets (under-16s). For the NatWest T20 Blast, that figure was only slightly higher at 13%. Those figures compare unfavourably with Premier League football: 18% and Premiership Rugby: 25%. Participation statistics are no better with Fordham disclosing that "participation trends are down 15% over the last decade and 10% over the last seven years" and Hollins stating that "one in two cricketers are thinking about not playing next year because it takes up too much time."

Taking inspiration from the Big Bash League where Cricket Australia have linked their participation programme to the increasingly popular competition Fordham said ECB is going to take a "commercial approach" towards participation by investing heavily in marketing to boost the falling numbers playing cricket in the UK. Hollins said that "development of kids cricket will be our number one strategic priority in 2017. Before England, before anything else."

As well as drawing attention to ECB's market research, Hollins sought to explain the need for change by placing cricket in a broader context, pointing to the declining value of international cricket and the competition posed by other sports and entertainment.

"90% of ECB revenue comes from the broadcast rights for international bilateral cricket," he said. "Our working assumption at the ECB and ICC is that there will be less Test match cricket going forward. That is no longer a guess or a belief that it might happen; it is an assumption. 90% of our revenue is attached to the form of the game that is in decline."

Hollins also described the threat posed not only by the Indian Premier League and Caribbean Premier League overlapping the traditional English season, but by Premiership Rugby whose season now ends in late June, Women's Football, NFL and Major League Baseball.

"We are getting more and more sports encroaching on the summer that used to be our domain. That is competition for our sport. We are in a really competitive market for people's time money and attention," he said.

© Cricbuzz