The quarterly meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) will be held in Bali from November 13 to 15, with the focus on strategy. The ICC had commissioned McKinsey & Company earlier this year to conduct a strategic review on the future of the game worldwide and it is expected to be tabled at the Bali meeting.
McKinsey & Co has made a number of recommendations in its report, and whether the ICC adopts them in their entirety will be known only at the meeting. However, the Jay Shah-chaired world body, keen on the global development of the game, is expected to accept a significant number of the recommendations in the voluminous report, particularly those relating to revenue generation and global economy of the game.
One of the suggestions is to reduce the ICC’s dependence on broadcast revenues. With there being not too many big broadcast players in world cricket, in particular in India where there is virtually one major company, the report is understood to have identified several avenues for revenue growth, including greater corporate sponsorship, data monetisation and the implementation of a mobile gaming project.
Mobile gaming and data monetisation are ambitious projects, and the ICC is believed to be keen on leveraging these resources. The data in question should not be confused with cricket statistics; rather, it involves harnessing the vast amount of global data generated with the involvement of players and fans. While this is likely to be a long-term project, unlocking the potential of this resource could provide a significant new revenue stream for the world body. FIFA is known to have successfully harnessed its data resources.
The ICC intends to make women’s cricket the most popular women’s sport in the world and aims to triple the yearly global cricket economy over the next decade. The game’s annual revenue is currently estimated at $ 3.5-3.8 billion world over, and the ICC wants to raise it to $10 billion a year. There are also plans to tap the potential of cricket in populous countries like China, Indonesia, Brazil and the US among others. India, of course, will continue to be the biggest contributor to cricket’s global economy.
The discussions during the recent FTP workshop in Dubai are understood to have been in line with this broader vision. As previously reported by this website, there will be encouragement to have more multilateral matches, besides, of course, more Twenty20 internationals. There could be fewer bilateral ODIs, although there has been some interesting ODI cricket of late. But at the end of the day, it will be left to the individual boards, rather than the ICC, since bilateral and multilateral matches belong to the individual boards.
