Cape Town – The biggest purse in South African football is R10million for the league championship. This is closely followed by a knockout competition, where competing teams basically need to win four matches to pocket R8m. Even my limited mathematical ability understands that that equates to R2m a game.
Now compare this with cricket’s domestic products, where none of the three trophies offer anything close to even R1m. It is only qualification, which is open to the two Twenty20 finalists, for the Champions League T20 that earns a substantial kitty for a franchise. And even the R2m that is guaranteed to each participant still pales in comparison with the “beautiful game”.
Remember too that I am not comparing European soccer, where the figures reach astronomical heights, but instead the local game here in South Africa. I am fully aware that Cricket South Africa suffered major financial setbacks due to their administrative problems recently, with the private sector not willing to invest in a game that was deemed corrupt at its core. Only recently have CSA managed to secure lucrative sponsorships again.
Despite this, though, CSA have still enjoyed their most successful financials in history over the past three years due to mega TV rights deals signed. And it is here where CSA need to dig deep into their own pockets, if sponsorship cannot be secured, to raise the prize money for competition winners.
This is especially significant for the first-class competition, currently rebranded as the Sunfoil Series. The Proteas are the No 1 Test nation currently. South African domestic structures have been hailed due to the smooth transition of Faf du Plessis, Rory Kleinveldt, Dean Elgar and Kyle Abbott over the past 12 months into the international arena.
However, this can only be a sustainable process if more attention and specifically financial incentives are ploughed into the longest version of the game. Twenty20 is fun and exciting, but it will never prepare players for Test cricket – the ultimate form of the game.
Franchises are forced to prioritise and invest far too many resources into being successful in Twenty20 cricket. Coaches’ futures are decided not by their first-class achievements, but on their success in T20, despite the Sunfoil Series requiring a scheduled 40 days and 120 sessions of hard grit, sweat and toil to be successful.
Take Cape Cobras coach Paul Adams for instance. His team are currently struggling in the RAM Slam T20 competition and could miss out on a place in the playoffs. Has he now “failed” in his debut season?
Surely not, considering he has already led this team to the Sunfoil Series title and half of the 1-Day Cup that the Cobras share with the Highveld Lions due to the Wanderers final being washed out.
The English county championship is contested by many more teams than South Africa’s six franchises, and is longer in duration, but the English Cricket Board have their priorities in order. They offer the Championship winners a cool £1million. With an incentive like that, counties surely have their priorities in order and are even able to deny their players from accepting Indian Premier League contracts if they are to miss any county matches.
Understandably, South African franchises cannot limit their players in this manner, but it was heartening to see Adams call back Proteas express Dale Steyn when he was set to miss a couple of Cobras matches due to signing a short-term Australian Big Bash contract.
Players have the right to ply their trade anywhere for the best possible price. I have no objection to that. What does sit funny with me, though, is how CSA fail to place the highest price on their first-class competition, the lifeblood of the game in this country. – Cape Times
TWEET OF THE WEEK
@hershybru (Herschelle Gibbs reminisces about that 438 game!): All the lads played their part...one or two had leading roles though..lol #proteas438
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