Grand slam of cricket: Secret plan hatched for new Saudi-backed T20 league

[Tillu]

It's pretty clear now how the anglophone snakes are looking to curtail the BCCI hegemony. Don't expect too much from even our BCCI haramis who will sell the fans down the river if they could earn a few extra bucks.

[Tillu]

England board opposed to Saudi-backed T20 league idea

MELBOURNE, March 18 (Reuters) - England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Richard Gould said they would not support a proposed global Twenty20 league bankrolled by Saudi Arabia as there was not enough room in the calendar for it.

A Sydney Morning Herald report on Saturday said the event would be backed by the sports arm of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and feature eight teams playing in four different locations.

 

"With the busy international calendar, a host of established franchise leagues around the world, and existing concerns about player workloads, there is no scope or demand for such an idea," Gould told the same newspaper.

"It's not something that we would support."

The ECB is keen to protect its own 100-ball format league, The Hundred, having raised $1.27 billion last month after selling franchise stakes to private investors.

 

The Indian Premier League remains the benchmark in franchise cricket, while Australia, Pakistan, West Indies, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates also have their own T20 leagues.

The Australian Cricketers Association has backed the proposed league saying it was mandated to "pursue initiatives that benefit our members".

"The ACA's early interest in exploring this concept is motivated by a desire to develop and normalise best-practice collective bargaining and an international gender-equity pay model for male and female cricketers," the player's union was quoted as saying in the report.

 

Reuters

 

[Tillu]

18 minutes ago, Tillu said:

If a Saudi-backed global Twenty20 League is ever going to take off, Cricket Australia’s new chief executive Todd Greenberg and chair Mike Baird will have to be its salesmen to India and the rest of the cricket world.

The league would be owned primarily by the International Cricket Council and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with a smaller stake for the players. Four annual tournaments would be played over a week each in iconic locations around the world, followed by a final at year’s end.

The eight city-based teams would be chosen for their cultural cachet: Sydney versus New York or London versus Mumbai. Riyadh would also be among the teams. After the tournament was up and running, those teams would be put up for sale to private investors.

When this masthead broke the story of the global league and its Saudi footprint on Saturday, Greenberg and Baird were unwilling to comment.

 

But Greenberg has been aware of the scheme since its germination in the second half of 2023 when he was chief executive of the Australian Cricketers Association. After resigning from Cricket New South Wales, Pat Cummins’ manager Neil Maxwell took the idea to Greenberg, and also chair Heath Mills and CEO Tom Moffat at the World Cricketers Association.

In turn, Greenberg and the ACA green-lit the hiring of Sydney-based Mothership Sport as a consulting firm to look into the concept and help draft a more detailed proposal. This move was motivated by a desire to ensure that Saudi involvement in cricket is productive, not disruptive.

The choice of Mothership was deliberate. One of its partners, Ant Hearne, already had a relationship with Danny Townsend, the former soccer executive who is now in charge of Saudi Arabia’s sporting investment arm. Hearne and Townsend worked together for Australian Professional Leagues.

Townsend, a visible presence at last week’s SportNxt conference in Melbourne, reputedly has access to more than $US10 billion in funds to use across the sporting landscape. Saudi Arabia already has commercial links into India, given it is a commercial partner of the BCCI via Aramco, and hosted the most recent Indian Premier League auction.

Recent changes in broadcast ownership in Australia have brought Saudi Arabia into even sharper view. Foxtel has been bought by the sports streaming giant DAZN, which in turn has sold a stake to Townsend’s SURJ Investments. Effectively, SURJ now have a significant interest in the company that bankrolls more major Australian sports than any other entity.

The ACA, chaired by Greg Dyer, has confirmed it was behind the global league idea.

“Part of the ACA’s mandate is to pursue initiatives that benefit our members, male and female, and ensure their connection to a healthy game – embracing new opportunities whilst seeking to preserve the games’ traditions,” the player’s union said.

“The ACA’s early interest in exploring this concept is motivated by a desire to develop and normalise best-practice collective bargaining and an international gender-equity pay model for male and female cricketers. And to develop a competition creating value for distribution to cricket’s governing bodies to protect and subsidise Test cricket and the continuing growth of the women’s game for all nations.”

Those mentions of gender equity stand out – squeamishness remains about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, including in some corners of Australian cricket administration.

 

The cricketing calendar poses another issue for the proposed tournament. Given how crammed the calendar is, the global T20 league would be unlikely to take place unless room can be found for it by reducing other kinds of cricket being played.

Mothership Sport’s website states that it is “focused on growing sport and sports-related businesses”, warning that, “events and competitions must be constructed to deliver meaning and jeopardy. Many will need to change, some may not survive.”

The World Cricketers Association is soon to unveil a report that looks at the structure and calendar of cricket across the world. Its panel included AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh, former ECB chief executive Tom Harrison and JioStar sports chief executive Sanjog Gupta.

Bilateral 50-over cricket has come under the spotlight recently as a format that has run out of steam, particularly after the ICC’s member nations abandoned a World Cup qualification league after only one cycle, between 2019 and 2023.

But there remains strong interest in ODI matches in South Asia in particular, as evidenced by massive audiences for India’s recent Champions Trophy tournament victory. A victory by India over Pakistan during the qualifying rounds was watched by 200 million TV viewers and 150 million streaming viewers in India alone. Killing ODI cricket, then, would not be so simple.

 

Baird and Greenberg will travel for their first International Cricket Council meetings together next month. That summit is also set to feature discussions about the future of Test cricket, including a concept for splitting the red-ball game into two divisions.

There is no suggestion the T20 league is yet on the ICC agenda. But if it is ever to get there, Baird’s relationship with the new ICC chair Jay Shah, still the most powerful figure in Indian cricket, will be as vital as any.

For one thing, India does not recognise players’ associations. Should the BCCI approve the idea, they will do so because it was presented to them by Cricket Australia, not the players. Other nations such as England will also have queries, like wishing to preserve the dollars the ECB just raised by selling the Hundred competition.

As such, bringing the Saudi proposal to life will be a measure of Baird and Greenberg’s international credibility.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/why-baird-and-greenberg-will-make-or-break-saudi-t20-league-20250317-p5lk3k.html

 

 

In this report, the Aussie representatives are even mulling to kill ODI cricket to accomodate this league. The next time these guys preach women's rights in Afghanistan somebody should beat them with a chappal.

[Muloghonto]

On 3/15/2025 at 8:25 PM, jf1gp_1 said:

No cricket league can beat IPL without Indian players. So all rubbish till bcci is backing this league.

This.

End of discussion.
The end.

 

[Mariyam]

On 3/18/2025 at 5:55 PM, Tillu said:

 

In this report, the Aussie representatives are even mulling to kill ODI cricket to accomodate this league. The next time these guys preach women's rights in Afghanistan somebody should beat them with a chappal.

Your comment reminds me of this scene

 

 

[Mariyam]

Does Saudi have the weather or the demographics that is interested in cricket?

 

Lots of Indians/Pakistanis/ BD and Lankans I know, but is the crowd that pays for stadium tickets?

 

Neighbouring UAE has more of the entrepreneurial/ white collared Indian crowd and hence a cricket league could work there.

[putrevus]

Saudis have immense wealth to burn . I don't think BCCI can compete with Saudi money.

 

They don't need Indian players,they can buy all foreign players and it will be end of IPL. Since they plan to rotate venues every year so it is very much viable , can they generate public interest in India is the question not that they need it to survive.

 

They can broadcast their t20 league for free in India too.

 

 

Edited March 19 by putrevus