The board is aware of the problem and Bvute said that they "hope to be able to pay all our players as soon as we can".
Wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu raised the issue of no national contracts and the ZC have said they will address the situation by awarding contracts for 12 core players at the start of the domestic season, when franchise contracts come up for renegotiation.
This really does show what Zim are up against. I think it's quite clear that this week's success is in large part a result of the franchise model, it would be a real shame if that had to suffer in the future...
The board is aware of the problem and Bvute said that they "hope to be able to pay all our players as soon as we can".
Wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu raised the issue of no national contracts and the ZC have said they will address the situation by awarding contracts for 12 core players at the start of the domestic season, when franchise contracts come up for renegotiation.
If you beleive what Bvute said you will beleive anything.ZC running at a loss there is something wrong here as to compare zc situation to air zimbabwe.
Im starting to believe my own hypothetical of 6 months ago.
Cut the mountaineers, reduce domestic scene to 4 teams.
To reiterate:
- Would save ZC alot of money in contracts and paying
- slightly bolster squad size to accomodate the talented outcasts of the mountaineers
- Reduce the no. of imports to say 2 per squad, and save said imports for potential national players (compton, ballance) marketing moves (lara, ntini etc) or players that bring supreme skill,professinalism and experience (plucking a name out of a hat, a player like simon katich, although i understand he himelf wouldnt play but thats the type of guy i mean)
- can have 12 people on the field as opposed to 11, boosts quality further
- would make the teams more competitive and not much has been lost. Fans would only be devestated if tuskers or eagles got the chop...lets face it.
i find the teams are all strong on paper at full strength, but when naional players and injuries take their toll it becomes park cricket. this idea will flaunt squad depth.
im not 100% sold on this idea but it may be valid if a team from the bottom 3 (rocks,rhinos included) are proving a financial strain on ZC.
Cricinfo profile of the 'James Bond' of cricket:
FULL NAME: Angus James Mackay
BORN: 13 June 1967, Harare
KNOWN AS: Gus Mackay
The other thang to comsider is to put it in perspective.
Im sure NZ have more playas in the country and they have a domestic scene of 4 teams.
Australia DEFINATELY has a higher player base and twice the people and they only have 6 teams.
England are the exception to this rule. But there county scene is a very weak standard in the sense that the jump from county to international is huge. A few years ago there were caslls to cull the teams, as i am saying here in Zim.
If you want 5 teams charge kenya, saffer u/19s or namibia to be the 5th team. Make some young money cash money out of them.
Cricinfo profile of the 'James Bond' of cricket:
FULL NAME: Angus James Mackay
BORN: 13 June 1967, Harare
KNOWN AS: Gus Mackay
- can have 12 people on the field as opposed to 11, boosts quality further
that's not first class cricket then. (And speaking about that, make the Pro40 11 a side again. Tinkering with numbers does not do the game any good imo.)
Interesting views. I see it slightly differently, and I quite like the idea of 5 teams as they are of equal strength, and hence a wider player pool, moving in the opposite direction will be going backwards. I believe the solution lies in the business model. We need to look at the sources of revenue, and work on those. Now looking at most financially sound Unions, you will find the following: Sponsorship, TV rights, Gate takings, and ICC subsidies. Now all these you will agree with me are somewhat influenced by the following the sport has. We need to make cricket a spectacle that people want to watch. We need to market it better. If say for argument's sake each franchise cost $500k pa to run, each franchise should have a sponsor say ($100k), there ought to be a drive to get active viewership (bums on seats) in the grounds. One could look at getting membership drives, and selling seasons tickets (easier and guarantees seasons attendance), say a target of 1000 season tickets (yes ambitious but doable if you take into account we had 5000 for the twenty-twenty...one could also include attendance to international matches using this ticket, of course this may favour the likes of the Tuskers and Eagles, but maybe have some sort of sharing system? Pricing? say each season ticket at $100 pa? giving each franchise (that is able to get 1000 members) $100k.
Cost $500K
Season Tickets $100k
Sponsorship $100k
Subsidy $100k
TV rights $200k
Simplistic, and not accurate, but doable, and more importantly, I think the survival of cricket will be its ability to sell itself to the public, and I think 5000 paid up members is not too ambitious, and pricing at $100 pa is not too exorbitant, but then again I don't live in Zim...but it sounds fair to me if civil servants take home about $200 pm then $100pa isn't exorbitant. But for me it all lies with marketing and selling the brand, we need to move away from being exclusive, and making this a spectator sport, we've all seen what the franchise system can do for cricket now we need to sustain it (better still help make it self sustaining). If I lived in Bulawayo (my home town)..I would be at most Tuskers games...and the more the brand grows, the more the sponsors want millage (advertising) and I am sure TV would follow also (advertising to sell) then merchandise, etc...but investing first is not avoidable.
PS there are about 100 contracted players on the franchise system, if they each got 10 friends and family to get a season ticket, and each got a friend or two for a season's ticket, we have at least 2000 season ticket holders (half way already....told you its not impossible). Maybe throw in specials, like group tickets for families, half price for youngsters, and elders, etc, actually get the kids hooked for free, and sell them tickets when they are older....does ZCU want me to market this thing!!
The numbers that you provided seem quite doable and i think the key would be to get season ticket holders involved or the sale of ground namining rights over a lease period say 5 years . Another avenue would be to market the T20 tournament and sale the rights and you can only get a higher fee if we get some stars involved lets get the bunch of Pakis and West Indian players in a few SA oaks from the border and we could have something going .
I think what this is reflecting is that there needs to be change on the admin scene . The way cricket was run in 1992 for say is different from what it is now .Back then it was an exclusive sport and mainly appealed to the white Zim community . It is now a sport that is now appaealing to the majority of the population . What worked in 1992 will not work in 2011 and beyond .
A new admin will do the work , young fresh minds that are innovative will change this scene .
The ZC don't manage and market cricket well enough to achieve those numbers. They can complain (and really, I think most of this is to get sympathy for the Taibu story) but the fact is people on the ground don't know about the games a lot of the times.
