Last week I made a decision that would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. I decided not to attend the four-day Championship game between Northamptonshire and Yorkshire, which begins on Sunday. I had a B&B booking and, without the Covid situation, I am sure I would have attended.
However, some things have changed.
Obviously Covid: sitting in the ground, in your own little bubble, unable to walk around and chat with friends and with the home supporters. I like to take photographs, and a hundred photographs, all taken from the same angle, can be as tedious as your friends’ out-of-focus holiday snaps. So the experience of attending a game is less than it used to be, and less than it might be again in the future. Perhaps.
Then the cost. I think tickets were £15, so £60 for the whole match. Three nights B&B would have come to £160, and round-trip petrol about £30, in this case. Total £250.
Instead, I can sit at home and watch the streaming on YouTube, and that’s the decision I made. The unappetising match experience was the crucial factor, combined with the on-line alternative. For other people, the cost arithmetic might be the reason not attend…and probably even a reason not to attend a home game.
Where does that leave us in a Covid-free future? Will Counties continue to stream? It will be an unpopular decision if they give up on it. Will attendance figures (which are not so dire as some in the ECB would have you believe) begin to suffer because of the streaming? Will County membership decline further?
Can the Counties take advantage of substantial viewing figures by taking advertising on their live and free streams? This is absolutely not my field, but do the figures make any sort of financial sense at all? I would love to know what people think. I believe it could work, because the main thing they are advertising is themselves. And the game of cricket.
One idea I have had for some years now, is that a General County Cricket Membership should be available for a fee perhaps 50% higher than the average single-county membership. You would nominate one County to receive 50% of your fee, and you would be a full member of that Club, with the other half split around the rest, and this would entitle you to attend, and enjoy members’ facilities, at any game.
Therefore, I could attend, say, Sussex v Kent whilst holidaying on the south coast. Of course, I can do that anyway, but the members’ benefits would be a huge attraction, to me at any rate.
Or is it all just too complicated?
David Morton
I attended the first day of the Hampshire/Surrey game yesterday. Ticket £16, return train fare £19 and probably £30 spent on beer/food. I haven’t been to a cricket match in over 18 months but also haven’t viewed one game streamed. For me it’s all about the match day experience and I have little interest in watching Yorks v Durham if I ever decided to venture North. So whilst your idea may appeal to some, I’d rather go when I could and pay what it is on the day.
This idea, which I fully support, was first floated some 20 years or so ago by a magazine called ‘Cricket Lore’. It never really took off, probably because only a minority of travelling cricket followers were interested. It would have suited me, as over the years I have travelled to every county to watch cricket.
Have enjoyed the travelling and different atmospheres far more than sticking with my native county Yorkshire, particularly in recent years.
Sadly don’t think the idea will see the light of day which is just another symptom of the ECB’s insistence of dumbing down the game.
I like the idea of the general membership but personally would not get sufficient use out of it due to work commitments. I do agree the counties need to monetarise the live streaming…but not to the point of over-commercialising it. I view the advertising industry as a necessary evil.
In the modern age where streaming has become the norm for millions of people cricket will move with the times at it always has, just a little slower than other areas, the problem being getting youngsters to relate to a game that requires some measure of concentration and inside knowledge to appreciate. Cricket has never been about instant impact and it takes longer, even in the shortest format, to complete. With attention spans clearly an issue, talk to any teacher here, if future generations are to enjoy the game atall it will have to adapt.
Personally streaming leaves me cold. It’s the sight and sound of cricket that creates the atmosphere for me, not fireworks, loud rock music, of which I am a fan in its place, and eye popping floodlights. I guess in this day of rapid change every generation gets out of its time well before its gone. When the radio station Kerramg was born its slogan was Life is Loud! cricket in its natural form
Any ideas to help the CC are welcome but also probably two decades too late.
The whole concept of “membership” seems somewhat anachronistic. It’s a bit like Gentlemen/Players held over for spectators.
I might go to some games in late summer if Covid restrictions and weather permit. I’ve no interest in watching the CC on stream.
The concept of membership is indeed anachronistic in the sense that it exists as it did in the Victorian age because most of the counties are still structured as they were founded back in that long-ago era, which is to say as clubs in the literal sense, owned and run by their members who have a shared interest in the club’s purpose.
Unlike football “clubs” which at the top end of the game are anything but, cricket clubs remain real clubs. I, for example, am one of the owners at Gloucestershire, and can speak and vote at the AGM, precisely because I am a member.
I’m not clear why this anachronism would be better done away with and membership ended or why we should just become customers of a sports business owned and run by businesspeople like Manchester United Football “Club”.
Well I think there is some merit in this idea. It’s likely to appeal more to those retired with time to spare. For me I wouldn’t go to a neutral match although in a normal season I generally attend all Surrey ‘s home and away CC matches. Several of the aways necessitate a BnB and cost around the £250 mark each in total that David pays.
The ECB, instead of poncing around with the 100 rubbish and white ball cricket 90% of the time should be promoting the Championship if it ever wants to develop test players again. That’s actually one of the importantly jobs of a governing sports body, but little do these ex shopkeepers and finance advisors know that. And play it in June, July and August!
One suggestion is to make it a flat £10 a day at all county grounds for non members and visiting supporters. Hampshire and Essex do a 4 day ticket for over 65s for £33 now. Make that for all ages. Ok you’ll never fill the grounds for the CC , but you’d get a lot more interest. And people spend money once inside.
Talking of Hampshire, I couldn’t get a ticket, was going to do all 4 days, but because of their interpretation of the imbecilic Covid rules on spectators, it was Member’s only unless you’d bought a ticket weeks ago. Yesterday on the live stream it looked like one man and his dog. Insane when you see an almost full Wimbledon with no social distancing, and 40,000 at the Euros. Test event? Bollox. Money talks, nothing to do with the virus at all.
I’m a Kent supporter but I live a short bus ride from the Oval. The logical thing for me to do would be to buy not a Kent but a Surrey membership (gaining me access to Test tickets) and then use it to follow Kent not just at at home but against Surrey, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex and (at a pinch) Hampshire. It would be a no-brainer for me, but what’s in it for Kent and all the other home counties? It would be a mssive boon for London-based supporters of any team but virtually useless if you lived in Durham or Cardiff. And the main beneficiaires would be Middlesex and Surrey.