One of the key tenets of any business is to grow your client base. The same principal should automatically apply to elite level sport.
With that in mind, Cricket Australia – and particularly its CEO James Sutherland – have been leading the charge towards day-night Test cricket.
The recent signing of a $500 million contract with the Nine Network to telecast international cricket for the next five years has significantly raised the prospect of day-night Test cricket in Australia.
The Nine Network was forced to pay 78 per cent more than its current rights agreement after the Ten Network made a bold attempt to end Nine’s 36-year association with CA.
For that sort of money Nine will be looking to bolster its audience substantially in order to justify the massive amount of money it has shelled out.
One way to increase both the TV audience and attendances at the ground is to move from the traditional daytime schedule – a situation that would be a win-win for both the broadcaster and CA.
Nine has seen the ratings benefits of live cricket being broadcast in prime time as a result of the figures returned each summer for the Perth Test.
With the three-hour time difference, due to daylight saving through the cricket season, stumps are due to be drawn at the WACA Test at 8.30pm Eastern Daylight Saving Time.
With the now seemingly mandatory slow over rates, the day’s play often concludes a half-hour later than that.
Ideally, the broadcasters in particular, would like to see day-night Tests scheduled to finish each day around 9.30pm.
By its very nature, a five-day Test can see only two days played over the weekend.
As CA has argued for quite some time, 60 per cent of each Test is scheduled when a large number of people are unable to either attend or watch it on TV.
Would it seem practical to schedule AFL or NRL matches on Friday afternoon rather than Friday night?
The schedule for this summer’s Ashes series is set in concrete, with all five Tests commencing at the normal times.
But already there are rumours abounding that the world’s first day-night Test may be played the following season.
The 2014-15 summer will be a different one for cricket fans, with just four Test matches being staged against India, due to Australia and New Zealand jointly hosting the World Cup in March 2015.
One of the traditional mainland Test venues will miss out that summer, with Brisbane the most likely candidate.
Adelaide is believed to be the preferred venue for the historic inaugural day-night Test due to the fact the South Australian climate is the most conducive, with little dew normally experienced in the evenings.
The ICC gave the tick to day-night Test cricket in October 2012, five years after CA pushed to have the format adopted on a global scale.
The sticking point to date has been the fact a ball suitable to be used under lights has still not been perfected.
The familiar red cricket ball cannot be used at night due the difficulty in seeing it clearly under lights.
The problem is developing a coloured ball – whether it is white, pink, orange or yellow, which have all been trialled – that can last the mandatory 80 overs prior to being replaced is proving difficult.
But is there a necessity to maintain the current law in first-class cricket that a new ball cannot be taken prior to 80 overs?
What if coloured balls were replaced every 50 or 60 overs – it would be the same for both teams.
Would it make all that much difference?
Nowadays pace bowlers are often just as difficult to contend with when they have an older ball, with reverse swing a significant factor – many times the swing is more pronounced with an older ball.
In order to try and increase crowds and audiences for what is still deemed to be the pinnacle of the sport it may well be worth altering the new ball regulations for day-night Tests.
Some point to the fact that batting during the twilight period when the natural light gives way to the artificial light is a difficult time for batsmen – a point often eluded to with respect to day-night limited overs matches – and should mitigate against day-night Tests.
Test cricket by its very nature already throws up numerous periods where batting can be an extremely difficult prospect.
Often the toss alone on certain pitches can have a large say in the outcome.
Being sent in on a juicy, seaming first day pitch can create havoc, while being able to bat first on a pitch that is clearly going to deteriorate dramatically over five days is a major advantage.
And let’s not forget Test cricket is spelled with a capital ‘T’ because it seen as the ultimate test of the sport’s skills.
A move towards some day-night Tests would only further enhance that contention.
Some argue that the introduction of day-night Tests will distort the game’s statistics.
That argument also does not hold water.
Throughout the history of Test cricket changes have occurred that have had significant effects on the stats of the game – the move from uncovered to covered pitches, bat technology and the reduction of boundaries to name a few.
And let’s not forget Sir Donald Bradman only played Test cricket in two countries.
As a business imperative the move to day-night Test cricket makes total sense.
Traditionalists may baulk at the idea but they seem likely to be forced in the future to come to terms with the changing times.
TheSportsFreak
Roar Guru
I'd imagine if the dew isn't an issue at Adelaide Oval (as Glenn states), and then it seems mandatory to have the MCG & SCG as part of a Test series... you're down to the WACA, Gabba & Bellerive. They'd likely choose the WACA because that wouldn't require the day/night format due to the time difference.
Tenash
Guest
sorry for the double post guys :(
Tenash
Guest
@ darcy actually its $600m (590m to be accurate). and actually it is interesting. u need a bit of simple analysis to figure out why that’s the case when cricket actually has better average tv ratings than the footy codes. the simple answer is the AMOUNT of CONTENT. the footy codes have more than 200 games every season while cricket has just 5-6 tests, 5-10 odi’s & 2-3 t20i’s every summer and the cricket deal is exclusively based on FTA tv. there’s no PAY TV component. the footy codes only get $400m-$500m from FTA while rest is from Pay tv. finally, this $600m deal is only for Australian rights (within Australia). cricket is an International sport. over the next 5 yrs Cricket Australia will receive well over $1 billion when u take into account overseas tv rights.
Tenash
Guest
@ darcy actually its $600m (590m to be accurate). and actually it is interesting. u need a bit of simple analysis to figure out why that's the case when cricket actually has better average tv ratings than the footy codes. the simple answer is the AMOUNT of CONTENT. the footy codes have more than 200 games every season while cricket has just 5-6 tests, 5-10 odi's & 2-3 t20i's every summer and the cricket deal is exclusively based on FTA tv. there's no PAY TV component. the footy codes only get $400m-$500m from FTA while rest is from Pay tv. finally, this $600m deal is only for Australian rights (within Australia). cricket is an International sport. over the next 5 yrs Cricket Australia will receive well over $1 billion when u take into account overseas tv rights.
Chui
Guest
I've never seen it done with the red ball for visability, only for damage or shape. I stand corrected if that's the case. Cheers
sheek
Roar Guru
In case anyone is wondering, Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket had day/night supertests back in the season 1978/79. Supertest players even wore coloured clothing & from memory the ball was white (I think). Heck, I should remember, but I don't! Oh, that's about 35 seasons ago....................
Tenash
Guest
Glenn slight correction, the new broadcast deal is a 118% increase on the previous deal not 78% (from $45m/yr to $98m/yr with ch.9) as for day-night tests, don't see that happening REGULARLY anytime soon. WTF are those ball manufacturing companies doing ?
darcytrainor
Roar Rookie
$500 million for the Cricket, $1 billion for the footy. Interesting. Why is Brisbane the most likely Candidate to miss our in 2014/15 Glenn? You have some inside knowledge or just a guess? The Gabba traditionally kicks off every tour not sure if they'd change that.
Don Corleone
Guest
The South African trial was at Senwes Park, Potchefstroom http://www.espncricinfo.com/Australia/content/ground/59172.html It's a small ground (think Manuka Oval) with 6 small light towers. The Gabba has 6 large light towers and supplementary lighting around the roof of the stands above the playing area. Perhaps there will be more pressure for them to have a pink ball trial somewhere like the Gabba. A recent Adelaide Oval trial had mixed results...but it did end at 11pm after rain delays. http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/content/story/446658.html
Don Corleone
Guest
That's right, hopefully Cricket Australia will consolidate at the right time and not over-extend like other sports, It's a matter of economies of scale. The Australian sports market is finite...cricket can only get so big in this country. I don't see why cricket can't aim to be bigger as long as it's sustainable. As for the blokes playing cricket down the park...sure they may reflect cricket participants...but not necessarily cricket consumers. The market research a few years ago (i.e. Gen X, white, male) was disasterous, bad enough for Cricket Australia to look into revamping the BBL to appeal to a wider audience.
Troy
Guest
Why don't they just start all the Test matches in Australia around 1pm and finish at 8pm and not change the game for an hour and a half of night cricket. Test matches are very different to day/night cricket because Test cricket is the pinnacle of the sport and is played over 5 days not 1 day. Even have an extra day if a min of overs haven't been delivered. If the extra hours are so important then just play more Test matches in Perth.
Timmuh
Roar Guru
Don, the pink ball was trialled in South Africa under what I believe was (I could be wrong here) full lighting at major venues and players reported it as a failure. In some cities it may well be possible to play a later session under natural light. Hobart for example has sunset well after 9pm, and while the twilight impinges before that a red ball with lights on might still work fine. Dew is an issue though, which might make Hobart and Brisbane unsuitable. Hobart has another issue, in that a large portion of the attendance is drawn from 2-4 hours drive away. Late finishes mean very late finishes for anyone going from the north-west coast. Certainly somewhere like Port Elizabeth should not be hosting day-night limited overs games because of dew, much less day-night Tests.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
Not sure your assumption of cricket having an exclusively gen x, white middle class male client base. Most weekends down at my local park there is a virtual absence of that demographic playing cricket! And I am assuming that all Chris was pointing out was that if your focus is purely on growing your client base, you will almost certainly fail. If however, you aim to produce a clearly defined, well produced product and the right price, then the client base increase will follow. Now that CA has greatly increased its revenue, I would assume it now has the resources to do that.
Don Corleone
Guest
What is it with cricket and the small-target, niche mentality? Cricket's in a competitive market, it must compete or get over-run by it's competitors. Soccer is an example of a competitor pointedly and aggressively targetting cricket and will happily erode it's client base. Must cricket have an exclusive client base of Gen X, white, middle class males? Or can it expand beyond that client base to attract women, non-cricket fans, girls, people from non-Commonwealth nations, casual fans who in-turn will play cricket, pay tickets for games, watch games on TV, buy official merchandise...etc. BBL and Test cricket on prime time, free-to-air TV have the potential of attracting more people to the game which will have positive flow-on effects for the sport.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
Hopefully you and Glenn won't open a business together. You'll go broke in 6 months.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
No. Depends on what's happening with your costs. Plenty of examples of businesses with large numbers of clients who still managed to go broke. Business skills 101.
Don Corleone
Guest
I kept an eye on the weekday ratings during the last test series:- the morning session averaged around 300,000, doubled to 600,000 after lunch and reached around 900,000-1million just before stumps. As a cricket fan who works full-time I know firsthand how frustrating it is only being able to watch 40% of a test match and racing home to get in the door by 5:55pm to watch the last over of the day...when there's still a couple of hours of perfectly good sunlight left. I can't see why the final session can't be played between 6:30pm and 8:30pm especially with daylight savings and artificial lighting. I heard about the testing of pink balls under lights and the concerns raised about them not being suitable. Then I looked at the trial on Youtube and it was played on an English minor county ground illuminated by a couple of floodlights....hardly the Gabba or the revamped Adelaide Oval. I can't see a dilemma with the red ball being replaced with a pink ball for the final session. Already umpires have a pile of balls with various stages of ageing to replace balls which have split or bent out of shape. If a redball is 30-overs-old at tea, why can't it be replaced by pinkball which is artifically aged for the final session? I can only see twilight/day-night tests as a win for administrators, advertisers, broadcasters and most of all cricket fans.
Don Corleone
Guest
+1 Great point, Glenn.
Nick
Roar Guru
Chui, the umpire has the power to replace the ball, with an equivalently used but more visable ball if they deem the original ball to become unusable. It happens all the time.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
There is a perfectly good Australian first-class competition to experiment with, before this is done with test cricket. And Im fully in support of day-night four- and five-day cricket ... Id even be happy with four sessions to a day, adding a 7-9 evening session under lights. It will change the game, but not as much as covered pitches did.