Swaroop Swaminathan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: One million euros. That's the money Cricket Ireland (CI) have had to spend to host their maiden Test, against Pakistan beginning on Friday. CI has next to no chance of recovering anywhere near that sum but Warren Deutrom doesn't mind it. There is a reason behind it. The two T20Is against India in June.

"Like most other Test-playing nations, we make our revenue on the white ball primarily through broadcast rights," Deutrom tells Express from Dublin. "For the first time, we have been able to generate significant broadcast rights revenues not from the domestic market (within Ireland) but from the overseas market. It is thanks to our two T20I games against India. The Test match is what I think you would call a loss leader (a product sold below market rates to get new customers on board). But we will generate the revenue from the T20I games against India."

Both the matches against India, to be played at Malahide on June 27 and 29, are on course to be sell-outs (tickets are available from €10 to €25). But gate money, according to Deutrom, is just one part of the equation. Thanks to interest shown by the Indian broadcast market, CI will go from red to green.

Deutrom, who has been the CEO since 2006, goes into a lengthy monologue. "Yes, that is the plan (to recover the cost of staging the Test by the time India come and go). We tend not to budget match by match but by our year of events. Most sophisticated businesses would spread their revenues and costs over multiple years but we have not been able to do that because we have never been able to assure what fixtures we would have from one year to the next (laughs). So some matches will cost us money while others will make us a lot of money. It would firmly be our intention that by the time we get to the end of Q2, the revenues we would have realised from our India games, combined with the revenues from our Pakistan game, would have outstripped the combined cost of those three games."

While the monetary aspect of the India clash cannot be ignored, CI will also use TV numbers that clash will generate to tell a story. "I have said this before and I will say it again. I don't think it's going to be an exaggeration to say that it (the two matches) should achieve the greatest television audience of any event ever staged in Ireland and that's a brilliant story for us to take to our government and partners," the CEO explains.

Even if that statement is loaded with possible hyperbole, Deutrom breaks it down. "The three main sports are Gaelic games, rugby and football. The major football clashes only generate significant interest within Europe while the audience for rugby is limited to pockets of Europe, South Africa and Australasia. For us, the visibility of Ireland playing India in Ireland going back into the Indian market place gives us a huge advantage over other sports."

CI in talks to host India in Test

Meanwhile, CI are in talks with India over a possibility to host them in a Test sometime over this four-year cycle. "Were the opportunity to present itself, yes (hosting India in a one-off Test)," Deutrom reveals. "... I can say that we are in active discussions with all other Test-playing nations and I hope that in the next couple of weeks, we will be in a position to publicise the outcome of those discussions.

swaroop@newindianexpress.com