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A Cricket World Cup title, the Women’s Ashes, and the overwhelming success of the pink ball Test Cricket trial will all undoubtedly rank toward the top of Cricket Australia’s list of achievements in 2015, and with immense satisfaction derived from all three significant events.
But when the glow of the summer wears off there will be one glaring item requiring action and that, in hindsight, perhaps might have been identified well ahead of time.
Simply put, CA have massively buggered up with their ticket pricing for the West Indies Test Series, and it will and has already cost them a large percentage of last season’s Test crowds.
Much has been said and written this summer about attendances, and particularly since the West Indies arrived for a series which happens to occupy prime real estate on the cricket calendar.
It’s very easy to say, ‘CA erred in scheduling the Windies for Boxing Day’, but it reality it’s not that simple, and it’s actually a situation for which I can empathise. In reality, with bi-lateral agreements and the once strictly adhered-to Future Tours program, the West Indies would have been locked in for these three Tests years ago – maybe even six or seven years ago.
Now sure, six or seven years ago, the West Indies were still a long way off the No.1 Test nation in the world. It certainly would have been known that the Windies were not going to provide the same sort of contest as England or India or South Africa. But Australia tours the Caribbean, which needs to be reciprocated, and some summers are going to be stronger than others. I can find sympathy for that situation.
Where I have absolutely no sympathy for Cricket Australia is their decision to keep the ticket prices for the West Indies at the same premium level as India and England in recent seasons, even increasing them from last year, in fact.
“The price of tickets increase marginally every year, they are CPI-based increases,” Cricket Australia Executive General Manager of Operations, Mike McKenna, said back in July when the schedule was confirmed and pricing structures released.
With New Zealand a team on the rise, and with the trans-Tasman cricket rivalry building again nicely, a decent argument could have been made to price those Tests at a similar level. Pricing the West Indies series at the same premium levels knowing that they’re a long way from competing at that level amounts to extortion.
For the day-night Test in Adelaide, there was brilliant thinking and pricing around evening session tickets, to entice people to come into the ground after work. Even without the novelty of Test cricket being played at night, it just makes sense to try an accommodate people who can’t make the full day’s play.
For the West Indies Test in Sydney, starting Sunday, there is no such option. It’s all day, or not at all.
And you watch people choose the latter.
CA have made the argument over time that Test Cricket is a premium product, priced along similar lines to Grand Finals and State of Origins, or concerts and musicals.
When it’s the best teams in the world playing, that argument might stand. The West Indies would battle to rank alongside a Saturday twilight football match, or a Sunday matinee session. And even State of Origin tickets this season had to be heavily discounted in Sydney.
One of the reasons the Big Bash League is so popular with mums and kids is not just the shorter format, but the much more enticing ticket prices.
You can take a family of four – two adults and two kids under 15 – to a Sydney Sixers match at the SCG this summer, and enjoy Gold category tickets for less than $90 in total. Less than $22 per head, in fact.
Those same Gold category seats for the January 23 ODI against India will set the family back more than $290.
For the first day of the Test on Sunday, those same Gold category seats again will be an outrageous $327 for the family.
(There doesn’t appear to be a family ticket option for the January 31 T20 International at the SCG, according to the Ticketek website, and only limited Gold and Platinum tickets remain at the time of writing.)
The same disproportionate pricing exists for single tickets, too.
A Twenty20 match is roughly half the length of an ODI, or a day of a Test Match. Even allowing for, say, a 25% premium being applied for the fact it’s international cricket, and then doubling that to equate out to a full day of cricket, the ODI comes in significantly dearer for the family. And obviously, a day watching the West Indies is even worse, from a sheer economics point of view.
CA CEO James Sutherland admitted during the sparsely-attended Hobart Test that ticket pricing is something will need to be reviewed, and this was as welcome an admission as it was astounding that the prices were set so high in the first place.
Test Cricket may still be the jewel in the crown, but it can’t continue to require the crown jewels being sold in order to attend.
If CA truly believe that the mums and kids of today going to BBL games are the Test spectators of tomorrow, then they need to properly convinced that what they will be seeing will be well and truly worth paying more to watch it.
It means that attending Test Cricket needs to be the best value for money of the summer. Significantly more than double the price of attending a BBL game to watch a lowly-ranked team like the West Indies is not even remotely good value for money.
Premium prices demand premium product, and CA have sold the Test cricket-viewing public well short over the last few weeks. That has to be the biggest lesson learnt from this summer.