5 Comments

Late to reading this article, but enjoyed it. A key reason that multi-club ownership misses the mark in football is that no set of fans want to think of themselves as a lower-down member of the food chain. There is little fun or joy in developing a player knowing that they will be moved to a higher-ranked or richer club elsewhere in the world/group who you individually don't care about.

I see this is less of a problem in franchise T20 cricket. Players could play for more than one team, as you point out, and the leagues aren't competing with each other in the same way. Also the lack of a centralised European or continental competition such as the Champions League is another benefit as it does not place an artificial ceiling on one member of the group in favour of another.

Expand full comment

I'm not so sold on the point of having a "uniform sense of identity" across clubs. The major difference from football is that pitch and playing conditions vary vastly across countries in cricket (although to be sure, playstyles vary somewhat across leagues as well).

An ultra-aggressive attacking approach with the bat might serve Sunrisers well in the IPL where an Impact Player Rule exists and pitches are flatter. But it might not make as much sense in the CPL and SA20. A defensive spin heavy approach might work in the ILT20 (?), but those players might not translate as well to IPL conditions.

Ultimately the goal of any franchise is to win, rather than serve the aims of the parent franchise.

Expand full comment

As a slight ideological point (I know that's a bit tangential to your post since you talk of multi-club models more in terms of operational efficiencies and synergies to be utilised then comment on the morals of the situation — but I think it's important for me to say this as a football fan)

Multi-club models are a blight on modern football. There is a reason why fans oppose them so vigorously and regulators are trying to implement rules to de-establish them (although Manchester City have very good lawyers indeed). For Troyes to be reduced to a feeder club for Man City and Girona is a disgrace and patently disrespectful to the fans in France. I do personally hope that this model is "disrupted" and ended.

Expand full comment

With regards to work permit point, I have always been keen on these franchises setting up teams in nations like Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Singapore, Hong Kong. I mean tapping into the Asian market is the best way to find cricket talent to start with. There are already a lot of Asian diaspora involved in playing cricket.

For e.g: A guy like Virandeep Singh from Malaysia bats at a good SR and franchises always look for that kind of batter up top, so could include him in a Qatari tournament, where X team is present and then his level could be understood by that franchise and then could be promoted to bigger clubs, like the RB model I mentioned in the previous comment.

Expand full comment

The first point resonates with the Red Bull model, where they play a similar model of direct play and stuff. Coaches like Jesse Marsch, Ralf Rangnick and Marco Silva come from the lower level clubs of RB family (Salzburg, New York or Bragantino) and came up, ensuring they maintained the same coaching philosophies intact within the entire family of RB clubs.

Expand full comment