I'll tell you why we won't be the fourth club. We've cut back our playing staff to costs that we can afford. Yes, we lost players but we haven't rushed out to buy a trophy. If ECB revenue falls to zero we've shown the way forward. We might not have a strong team but we'll still be around.

And the more I hear about Warks from Kim the more relieved I am that we're not in the boom & bust test match industry. Sorry if that sounds negative from a Worcester point of view.

So much and so many angles I could write here....let me keep it to the basics.

Political spin only works if no one can see that it is spin.....making it so obvious that the Press rip it apart is simply a cock-up..such as the ECB's present strategy, which can be called Panic and Panic Again. No one will stand by and let Academies and youth functions, village and small club sides wither, as Team England is put on a pedestal and senior England players buy another Porsche.

I could talk about the ECB approach all night to rip it to shreds...the insistence that the BBC will get the Ashes when only a fool would think that ITV are currently employing a load of classic past and present players as a charitable exercise and not as a dry run. The wheeling out of the 'four Counties must close' nonsense- even Stephen Brenchley in the Independent on Sunday mentioned that yesterday. The credibility of much admired 'backroomsmen' such as Peter Radburn to mention of the horrors of anyone but Sky having the game forever....

The ECB's pawprints are all over this feeble, futile and febrile attempt to win us over, and all they are doing is making laughing stocks of all concerned. If I thought KP would never enter another nightclub or that no England player would ever sign with the IPL again, then it may be worth just considering our options. But to threaten County Board men with grassroots destruction to fund a new Ferrari for someone- just throw these idiots out. And do it soon.

Absolutely spot on, WBB.

SKY money has become the be all and end all that keeps the passengers all on the ECB gravy train. This notion that grassroots destruction will take place annoys me intensely. My cricket club has never received as much as half a dozen cricket balls - so where does SKY's £ 300 million go then ?

How many houses do KP and Fred own, do you think? And how will Batty live if his Slurry gravy train hits the buffers?- but don't worry about your average Worcestershire club side: the ECB will let them go to the wall and blame the Government, the BBC and any other scapegoat they can find but amazingly, not any agents, lawyers or big shot stars. Funny that.

Exactly right. The players and agents bleed the game dry whilst the ECB wring their hands and blame everyone else.

Here's a potential scenario.

Cricket income from TV falls through the floor, so the ECB contact the clubs to inform them of the reduced income. The Newt is informed that we'll only get £500k and not £1.5m. What then ? The only option is to cut back playing staff and their salaries.

Club calls players together. "Look chaps, it's like this. We can't pay you more than £30,000 a year so we suggest you go back to summer contracts and find winter work to top up if you like. Unfortunately, if you don't take the pay cut you're sacked" (probably can't do this but TV would give three-four years notice so the clubs can plan ahead) "If you don't take a salary in line with our income you can always go to other clubs. But they've all had their income cut and most have been losing big money for years. Try Surrey and Hants with the hundreds of other players"

The approx £150 million the ECB is talking about losing is two entire years' income. You simply cant cut back to cover that over 4 years. 21% of their money goes to grass roots/recreational cricket so that would lose £30 million.

The ECB money goes everywhere - running all the national teams costs £17 million, £10 million goes to minor counties, cricket boards, the premier league and donations, £33 million goes to the counties, £5 million on umpires, prize money and floodlights. There's also a £30 million scheme that covers drainage, floodlights, coaches education, more for grass roots and money for womens cricket. They spend every penny they get.

They arent scamming here - thier accounts are available on their website and you can see where the money goes and the results they achieve. I'd say they maybe have too many staff and a couple of execs are paid way too much but, other than that, not much wastage.

Thanks again Kim. There's an assumption that with Sky it's all or nothing which needn't be the case. We have enough cricket for terrestial TV to chip in, and there's no reason why Sky can't be forced to allow the BBC to show extended highlights - at a cost. There's a middle ground to be achieved somewhere.

I think thats exactly right Serchers. A compromise inevitably heavily weighted in Sky's favour would be the answer. Also think the ECB might need to grow bigger cojones over this. The need is both ways after all. How does Sky fill it schedules for hours on end in the summer without cricket? With huge difficulty- so the ECB have muscle here as well.


May all be pie in the Sky (Ho! ho!) anyway. Labour will rush it through as a vote winner but it wont win enough votes so Tories will rush it out again in June.

Another point - there have been press reports recently that Sky will be forced to allow other broasdcasters to show Sky Sports 1 on Freeview (although presumably as a subscrition channel) - such as BT Vision. This may well mean that there will be a possibility of subscribing to just one channel (rather than the full package) for part of the year (for those of us who think Premiership football is a children's game). This would make the cost much more reasonable than at present, and give a platform which is very widely available. There might be hope of a compromise here

Found this on the main website, the press release from the ECB regarding free to air v Sky. There are a couple of really good points within it.

The ECB has informed the Government that it is not inconceivable that the funding shortfalls created by listing would precipitate a mass exodus of players from the International game and their contracts with national cricket boards, to play instead in tournaments designed specifically to appeal to pay-TV broadcasters.

I hadn't thought of that scenario and it's a real threat. Whereas I have been suggesting that slaries are cut back accordingly, this simply won't work as there are alternatives available to the players. The earnings gap is big enough now but by widening it we'd lose a lot of players.

A major plus point for me is this : In its submission, the ECB has reiterated its proposed innovative and positive solution to DCMS which is to strengthen the B List thus ensuring that highlights are broadcast FTA at family friendly times (between 7.15 and 8.00pm), and that all Tests, not just the Ashes, are on this List.

http://www.wccc.co.uk/news/news.asp?newsID=696

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/455824.html

I agree with quite a bit of this.

Yes, an excellent article. The sad thing is that the list of current woes probably does lie with the ECB in some way or another.

here are some more woes:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/counties/7583184/English-cricket-looks-again-at-city-franchises-for-Twenty20.html