Creating a Successful T20 League

Thoughts on some of the mistakes that leagues currently make...

The business of cricket continues to be a significant interest of mine, and in the future is an area where I’d like to evolve towards. Given this, I thought I’d create a post looking at some of the major decisions which start-up and early-stage leagues need to get right to ensure future success.

Ultimately, the most important question & starting point is the same as with pretty much every start-up business…

What is the objective?

It sounds simple, but the objectives are more complex for a short-format league than some might think. (In the article I’ll now call these T20 leagues for ease, but they obviously include T10/100 as well).

• Is it for the league owners to make profit?

• Is it for the team owners to make profit?

• Is it to grow the support of the game in wherever the league is?

• Is it to find domestic talent for the national team?

The problem is, these objectives are frequently mutually exclusive. It is likely that owners/teams making profits isn’t going to align with growing the game in the country, or finding new local talent.

Given that transfer fees don’t exist yet in T20 leagues, recruiting young players with a high ceiling is less viable than it is in soccer, where teams such as Brighton and Brentford have exploited the market by data-driven recruitment of young players with future high resale value.

While talent hunting programs exist in T20 leagues, such as the admirable Lahore Qalanders program in the PSL, the draft and auction recruitment methods of leagues mean that it’s often difficult, if not impossible, for a team to retain all their young talent continually which is a problem given that this talent is usually developed at a cost.

However, T20 leagues, as opposed to soccer, currently do not have the financial recompense of transfer fees. If a league was to implement transfer fees (more on this later), then it would become extremely viable to construct talent hunting programs which would also help find resources for the national team too.

So, the objectives covered by the latter two bullet points often run contrary to the first two, and that’s a major issue for new start-up leagues, and also existing leagues too. In the first season of the MLC, for example, there is currently very little selection of American-born players, and any team owners minded to look to try and prioritise that would likely be currently at a significant expected performance disadvantage, which then can potentially jeopardise profit-making.

Also, there’s scope currently in some leagues to have high match involvement for overseas players over domestic (e.g. recruit overseas batters who bowl, overseas bowlers who can hit etc) which is something also seen in other leagues. The Abu Dhabi T10, for example, with a requirement of playing at least 1/2 domestic players (depending on the season’s rules) often has had domestic players neither bat nor bowl in matches, with teams perhaps minded to pick the best domestic fielder instead. There would probably be discussions along those lines among the management groups of teams in the ILT20 as well, where the situation is pretty similar.

Finally, selling the teams. At least some to IPL owners makes sense as it will give the league a greater chance of success, and maximise initial investment. Also, holding matches at favourable times for subcontinent viewership also could be considered.

Drafts and Auctions

I’ve seen more than enough evidence that fans on social media in particular, and obviously watching on TV/online streams also, absolutely love the drafts and auctions of leagues. Particularly auctions. The social media buzz about the SA20 auction before the first season was huge, and I think was a major contributor to the success of the tournament in that inaugural year.

So, why wouldn’t a league try and make the most of this very cheap publicity from a draft or auction? Why wouldn’t they want to make a big show of the event? I don't really know.

Despite this, some leagues, such as the CPL and The Hundred, appear to keep the player selection process much lower profile than needs be. Having seen the draft lists for many tournaments too, the amount of poor information in them (e.g. spelling mistakes, using random names for players, tenuous descriptions of a player’s role) is pretty huge. Some leagues don’t even promote the draft list to fans!

The whole recruitment event just needs more thought, because done well, it’s very good value publicity for any tournament.

Owners/Recruitment

On a related subject to the draft/auction point, owners frequently try to get involved with recruitment (and/or selection), but it’s a bad idea for various reasons.

Primarily this is because they have little idea which players are good or bad, or who represents value for money, or how to structure and balance a starting XI. In a recruitment mechanism you need to have flexible plans, as opposed to a point of view that ‘player x is a non-negotiable at whatever the price’.

Throw in the fact that they can be influenced by personal relationships, and it’s not difficult to see why owners can actually constrain the expected performance level of their team on the pitch. In high level soccer, you rarely (although occasionally do) see owners getting hugely involved in recruitment or selection, and in that more evolved sporting industry, it’s clearly common sense.

To get the highest standard of league, teams need recruitment experts and coaches present at the drafts, but in some leagues the coaches and analysts are appointed after the drafts, a decision which makes zero sense whatsoever on an expected performance level basis.

Despite what is often a level playing field in terms of allowable budget to spend in a draft mechanism - a structure which should ensure relative competitive parity - in leagues such as the T10, and even the PSL (Karachi Kings/Quetta Gladiators have consistently struggled in recent years) the teams hugely vary in standard and that’s not a good thing for leagues. It is my view that questionable recruitment often plays a significant part in these struggles.

Recruitment - Transfer Fees

I would love to see transfer fees implemented in a T20 league. I’m amazed that no league has been brave enough to put this into place yet as it’s an obvious USP with high levels of benefit.

Want to buy a superstar? Great, but it’s going to cost you. A league could even benefit from each sale by several percent as well, giving them a further income stream.

Transfer fees would also provide a competitive advantage for teams minded to go down the Brighton/Brentford route, and create frenzied discussion - free publicity - on social media and probably on TV as well. Anyone who has seen Deadline Day on Sky Sports will understand this.

How many overseas players in a team?

The entire conversation starts from the answer to the first question - what is the objective of the league/team owner? If it is to make profit as quickly as possible, then a league with as many high-profile overseas players as possible makes complete sense. If it is to develop domestic talent then it doesn’t, but it does risk a lower/mismatched standard of league.

I’d actually like to see a league with no national restrictions, but held in a country which would generate considerable crowd support (e.g. India, Pakistan, England). It would create a potential USP to challenge the current status quo, and would be similar to Premier League soccer. The closest league to this is possibly the ILT20 but matches in the UAE are often held in front of sparse crowds.

Ensure the venues are full

There will be many people who judge the success of the tournament on this. So do whatever you can do ensure this becomes a reality.

If necessary for year one, make ticket prices cheap or even free as a loss-leader, and bring in fan engagement such as the prizes for a one handed crowd catch like we saw in the SA20. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that giving a fan cheap entry with the possibility of winning a lot of money for a crowd catch will entice people to come and watch, and then spend money on additional things at the venue (kits, food and beverage, etc).

Pitches

Make pitches batting friendly, and ensure that the same pitches aren’t continually used. If this is tough, consider bringing in the boundaries. Fans and commentators generate excitement from boundaries and particularly sixes, and mostly don’t want to see 120-135 vs 120-135 type matches in T20. You can go too far with this - for example the scores we saw at Rawalpindi in the PSL recently - but a sweet spot of 180-200 playing 180-200 makes for an entertaining match with numerous momentum swings.

Clashes with other tournaments

Leagues should ensure that there are as few clashes with other events as possible, otherwise it becomes a financial contest to see who can offer the most money to players.

Other benefits of having no clashes include

• Sole focus of the franchise cricketing audience on TV and social media, creating additional financial and publicity benefits

• Less chance of partial overseas signings which I feel can lower the profile and standard of the tournament - could being available for the entire competition be a mandatory declaration ahead of any recruitment process?

Consider rule variations

For example, impact subs as was introduced in the IPL this year. I think impact subs were generally a positive introduction to the IPL although I prefer the option of an additional overseas player being named as an impact sub, and for teams to have to name their starting XI before the toss (as opposed to having two teams named depending on whether they have to bat or bowl) to increase tactical thinking. In my view the impact sub timings this year in the IPL became generally quite formulaic.

Other rule variations could include the 10 over bonus point for the team winning at the halfway mark which was sadly scrapped by the Big Bash, a floating Powerplay, or a bonus point for scoring 200, winning by a certain margin or bowling a team out. Whatever it takes to ensure continued talking points in matches, and to ensure that both teams are competing for something in a match for as long as possible, which would help with avoiding matches where one team dominates another which isn’t great for fan viewing.

Rule variations also increase the tactical element of matches, and give potential advantages to those teams who spend a lot of time working on this. This would then create further discussion in the media/social media, and continue the debate on the matches in the tournament for longer which can only be a good thing for the publicity of the league.

DRS

Should be mandatory in any decent T20 league. Including challenges for wides, no balls, etc. Two challenges per team with umpires call retaining the challenge. Let’s have as high a standard as possible in terms of getting decisions correct.

Financials - Payments, Hotels and Travel

Leagues which mess players and support staff around with false promises of payment dates, payment amounts or even making it a battle to get the full payment owed runs contrary to their desire for a successful league.

So - any successful league should ensure those who have contributed to the league are paid promptly in full. Perhaps a league should consider ring-fencing this amount of money from owners in advance of the tournament.

Players and their agents remember things prompt/full payments and base future availability on this.

Similarly, players also remember the class of hotels in which they stay in, class of flights they get for travel, daily allowance values and the quality of food provided.

All of these may seem insignificant, but they are valued by the people involved in the tournament, and in a world where there are choices for participation in tournaments and a finite amount of time which people want to work, players plus support staff take these things into account.

A franchise might think they are being smart by trying to save a little bit of money by putting players up in a mediocre hotel, making players share rooms (I’ve seen it in a franchise league!), or trying to make them travel economy class on a long-haul flight rather than business, but as long as a rival team is doing it better, a team with a short-sighted cost-saving strategy shouldn’t expect to be first choice among players. Players will always prefer to go to the team who looks after them best.

Financials - Prize Money

An easy way to create a point of difference to other leagues. Generally team and ownership prize money is very low, certainly compared to soccer. If you could find a title sponsor to give a huge title prize for the winning team it would naturally incentivise as high a standard as possible, and creating less tolerance for failure.

Financials - Promotion and Relegation

Finally, no short-format league has dared to look at promotion and relegation. So simply on this basis, it’s worth considering as a USP.

At the moment, it seems there is little jeopardy for owning a team. Generally, investments rise in value, often significantly, and there should be greater benefits for success and implications for failure.

Not only this, but the promotion and relegation aspect prevents meaningless matches towards the end of the tournament, and create continued discussion among supporters.

A 16-team tournament with two divisions of 8, and two up/two down or one up/one down with a play-off between second-bottom of Division One and second-place of Division Two would be my starting point for this. Teams starting in Division One would have a higher franchise sale price to owners than Division Two teams, and just as with any financial investment, the value of that investment can go down as well as up.

I hope you found this an interesting read, and I’d love to hear your thoughts via the comments tab below.