Saudi Arabia is planning to enter the world of franchise cricket by injecting $500 million (Rs 4347,42,00,000) into a T20 league. According to a report, the proposed eight-team league will follow a tennis Grand Slam-like model, with teams assembling across four different locations in a year. The league will be backed by Saudi Arabia’s SRJ Sports Investments, headed by Danny Townsend, a former chief executive of the A-League. According to a report in The Age, discussions about the league have been going of for a year between the SRJ Sports Investments and the International Cricket Council (ICC).
“The concept has been secretly in the works for a year and is the brainchild of Australian Neil Maxwell, the former NSW and Victoria all-rounder who manages Australian captain Pat Cummins and is a former board member of the Australian Cricketers’ Association and Cricket NSW,” the report said.
The report added that the main goal of this project is to address the sport’s “most pressing problems”, including the growing concerns over the sustainability of Test cricket beyond the big three — India, Australia and England — of world cricket.
“While players would be well compensated, the global league has been drawn up aspirationally as a way to establish an alternative revenue source beyond cricket’s established funding model. Under that system, member nations receive income from broadcasters and ICC distributions, but it is weighted heavily in favour of the game’s superpower India and to a lesser extent Australia and England, leaving small countries struggling for financial viability,” the report added.
The league, if approved by ICC, would be played in vacant windows, without disturbing the calendars of other big T20 tournaments like the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL).
“The travelling league would complement, not take away from, domestic T20 tournaments and was meant as an avenue for world cricket to address growing issues about its future. Smaller nations would share in the funds raised and it is hoped they would be encouraged to embrace the idea and play less unprofitable cricket,” the report further claimed.
There is no official update regarding the same as both Maxwell and Townsend refusing to comment on the reported development.
“The teams would be new franchises, based in cricket-playing nations- including one in Australia – and new markets, and there would be men’s and women’s competitions. The final could be staged in Saudi Arabia.”
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