English cricket must find an extra £13 million annually to meet a damning report’s recommendations to close the gender pay gap and create free-to-access talent pathways, according to a “conservative” cost analysis.
Oakwell Sports Advisory, which has run the numbers for just two of 44 recommendations, suggests the English and Wales Cricket Board may now become “more receptive” to unlocking private investment in the Hundred.
With money already tight at the ECB, the 316-page manifesto for “urgent reform” from the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket calls for improvements worth 10s of millions in total.
Oakwell analysed the two categories which would have the “largest financial impact”. Under recommendation 15, match fees for England men and women would be made equal immediately, with equal pay at domestic level by 2029 and then at international level by 2030.
The Oakwell calculation alone for centrally contracted increased match fees across the red-ball and white-ball game came to £2,592,150. In response to a further recommendation to make salaries for the Hundred equal by 2025, Oakwell estimates a further cost of £6 million.
With England’s white-ball captain Jos Buttler set to be offered a lucrative four-year deal by IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals, the ECB is already under significant pressure to ensure pay packets are competitive.
“These recommendations, combined with Fanos Hira’s report that highlights the inability of the Hundred to materially improve finances organically, place the ECB in a pressured situation regarding their finances,” the analysis says. “In turn, the ECB may be more receptive to fresh injection of capital and expertise.”
The analysis adds that it does not assume any increase in team budgets from 2022, which it recognises is unlikely given the competitive landscape of franchise cricket. “For Recommendation 15, it was only possible to partially estimate the total cost of implementation and is limited to only two of the 11 points,” explained Charlie Umbers, a senior analyst at Oakwell.
In a bid to redress the current damning statistic that privately educated white British cricketers are 13 times more likely to become professional cricketers than state-educated counterparts, the ICEC also called for participation in talent pathways to be made free of direct costs charged by counties. Those reforms alone would cost £4 million, the Oakwell analysis adds.
The ECB issued an unreserved apology this week and promised a “reset” over the report’s findings that cricket is elitist, sexist and racist. Richard Gould, the governing body’s chief executive, concedes, however, there will be talk of “reallocating resources” while consultations take place with the counties.
With the likes of Saudi Arabia looking to increase its investment in cricket, one highly possible outcome is that the ECB looks to release funding via the private sector in the Hundred franchise. Richard Thompson, the ECB’s chair, previously valued the Hundred at over £1 billion after confirming the ECB had received an offer for its newest competition.
“In comparison to other sports such as football, cricket does not have a huge amount of money,” Gould said on Monday. He says his “favourite stat at the moment” is that the ECB’s total annual commercial income is £120 million less than that of Tottenham Hotspur. “That kind of puts it into context slightly,” he added.
More than 4,000 people responded to the ICEC’s call for evidence over the past two and a half years, with one in two saying they had experienced discrimination. A “prevalence of an elitist and exclusionary culture” is detailed in the report.
Women have been abandoned as “second-class citizens”, routinely experiencing misogyny with “unequal access, pay and treatment”, the report found.
The dominance of private schools in cricket’s talent pathway also played a key role in determining “discriminatory outcomes across the game”.
What the Lord’s crowd made of the ICEC report
By Shubi Arun, at Lord’s
Following the release of the ICEC report, Telegraph Sport spoke to members of the Lord’s crowd on day one of the second Ashes Test to see what they made of the findings.
Does cricket have a diversity problem?
“From my experiences I know it did when I was growing up. From my experiences now, I don’t see that. I work with a club that is really well run and the kids don’t have a clue what that problem even is.”
Does cricket have a class problem?
“That’s not the ECB’s problem, that’s more of a government problem. If you want to make cricket accessible for everyone, then cricket should be accessible via not Sky Sports for one thing. So, if you want to break down classism, then the government should not have removed it from the protected list of sports that’s available for everyone. That’s where that problem started.”
Saeed Mian
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Is cricket sexist as the report suggests?
“I think you can see there are mostly men in the ground. With competitions like the Hundred and putting the women’s game on a more even path, that is changing. It’s getting more women interested in the game. I think [sexism] still exists but they are making moves to change that.
“One of the recommendations was to end that Eton vs Harrow game [here]. I think that’s absolutely right. It’s not right to have private schools playing each other [at Lord’s] and not women’s professional cricket teams. That does need to change going forward and it’s good they recognised it, albeit decades too late.”
Georgia
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What did you make of the report?
“It’s made something public that I’ve long suspected. My son plays cricket, he plays for one of the London boroughs. I was talking to one of the coaches and he suggested that some very very talented non-white players were never going to make it for fairly racist reasons — their diet, their parents’ attitudes towards cricket. Stereotyping. He had a view of stereotypes that he didn’t think they were going to make it. If he has that view, what chance have they got? “
Does cricket have a diversity problem?
“I think it’s not a part of cricket, it’s part of society. There’s an element of racism that reflects itself in sport and what people do in sport and other parts of life, work etc.”
Steve
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How can cricket be made more inclusive?
“Make it cheaper. It was £160 to come today. My son would love to come today but he’s not because, basically, I can’t afford to bring him. The state schools don’t play cricket. Make it more inclusive. The state schools sold the cricket fields years ago. The kids who play cricket at state schools get scholarships at private schools. They get bursaries and scholarships. Does it need to be inclusive across the country? Of course it does. But the government needs to do that. They have got to make sure there are enough facilities for everyone.”
Martin
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