Great (albeit depressing) article again Nathan. Your reporting, and interview of Bachchan back in March was spot on in terms of the questions asked. CI, Bachchan et al have taken fans and players for absolute mugs. What I would love to know is whether they even bothered to communicate with the players prior to this announcement. It's been common knowledge for well over a month yet not a peep from those in charge. We're at the point now where you could hardly blame the players if they just packed it in and tried careers elsewhere. I mean, what's the point when you are in an organisation that seems more interested in administrative matters than actually organising matches? It's insulting stuff
Players only got told yesterday. I've spoken to one or two who are clearly fed up of it all and if they had other options they might take the plunge. We all saw the Balbirnie instagram post... you don't need to guess how the playing group feels about this recurring theme
What aggrieves me is the combination of child-like optimism and a failure to learn lessons from recent mistakes and failures
Firstly despite seven years of failure to launch, CI don't seem to have given much consideration of the possibility that it might not happen, and have a robust Plan B for some meaningful cricket in the Peak of summer
I don't understand where the optimism that it would be a success was based on. For me success would be large crowds, household name signings and lucrative broadcasting rights
Large crowds, as you have discussed previously only 2500 spectators turned up for the 3 games against West Indies, So how many did they think would turn up for a team with no local history or connections?
Household names, The EPTL was being squeezed, with a bit of leakage, between the more lucratuve and established MCL and 100. Which made me ask *would anyone of the general sports fan would have heard of be signed-up.
When it comes to money Ireland can't compete with those 2 tournaments. At best it is the 5th most popular team sport with a population of 6M, there is a low ceiling of how much revenue it can make
There was talk of recently retired Indian players signing, but this would make the tournament even more of a pointless exhibition rather than meaningful cricket
In England last (and apparently this) summer there was a master's tournament (where KOB played for England!) and no one really showed interest
Broadcasting rights, they couldn't find a broadcaster for the the then abandoned Australia series and the Zimbabwe test was shown on YouTube, so not sure who is clamouring to show this I imagine you will have to bite the bullet and get a Bet366 account
The aspect that most irked me was the statement that we'll try and again next year, almost don't worry it will be different that time, without addressing the problems why it has a history of failure
It ultimately comes down to CI get 20% of 30 mill per franchise (CS and KNCB take a marginal cut but it's still a big one-time cash injection). Then they can say they're hosting cricket even tho it's being paid for by someone else. It isn't about building audiences in Europe, it's about convincing someone that enough of the sub-continent audience will watch and hoping they bite the bullet. That might have been the case in 2019 but there's now too much competition. I don't see the benefit of it at all unless they convince a few useful idiots to stump up the cash
In 2019 there was less competition, now it will bookended by MCL and 💯, now the calender is already over populated with T20 tournaments,
This 20% of €180M over 10 years, €3M+/year is an academic number that I don't think will ever be realised.
Just love to know how much energy, time and money has been spent chasing this dream, and although this can never be reclaimed, but the sunken cost fallacy seems to hold as they continue this process for 2026
Surely they need to recognise that this is dead, and focus on Abbotstown and improving the match days for the international team, but I fear we will be having the same conversation next year and lamenting the cancellation of the NZ test
Great read as always Nathan. I wonder if the delay in announcing central contracts is linked to this? Was the ETPL used as a bargaining tool to get the players on board after they initially rejected their deals last year?
The contracts have been agreed, just not announced for whatever reason. So there isn’t an issue there. CI have tried to use it as a bargaining tool in the past but player union pushed back
Great (albeit depressing) article again Nathan. Your reporting, and interview of Bachchan back in March was spot on in terms of the questions asked. CI, Bachchan et al have taken fans and players for absolute mugs. What I would love to know is whether they even bothered to communicate with the players prior to this announcement. It's been common knowledge for well over a month yet not a peep from those in charge. We're at the point now where you could hardly blame the players if they just packed it in and tried careers elsewhere. I mean, what's the point when you are in an organisation that seems more interested in administrative matters than actually organising matches? It's insulting stuff
Players only got told yesterday. I've spoken to one or two who are clearly fed up of it all and if they had other options they might take the plunge. We all saw the Balbirnie instagram post... you don't need to guess how the playing group feels about this recurring theme
What aggrieves me is the combination of child-like optimism and a failure to learn lessons from recent mistakes and failures
Firstly despite seven years of failure to launch, CI don't seem to have given much consideration of the possibility that it might not happen, and have a robust Plan B for some meaningful cricket in the Peak of summer
I don't understand where the optimism that it would be a success was based on. For me success would be large crowds, household name signings and lucrative broadcasting rights
Large crowds, as you have discussed previously only 2500 spectators turned up for the 3 games against West Indies, So how many did they think would turn up for a team with no local history or connections?
Household names, The EPTL was being squeezed, with a bit of leakage, between the more lucratuve and established MCL and 100. Which made me ask *would anyone of the general sports fan would have heard of be signed-up.
When it comes to money Ireland can't compete with those 2 tournaments. At best it is the 5th most popular team sport with a population of 6M, there is a low ceiling of how much revenue it can make
There was talk of recently retired Indian players signing, but this would make the tournament even more of a pointless exhibition rather than meaningful cricket
In England last (and apparently this) summer there was a master's tournament (where KOB played for England!) and no one really showed interest
Broadcasting rights, they couldn't find a broadcaster for the the then abandoned Australia series and the Zimbabwe test was shown on YouTube, so not sure who is clamouring to show this I imagine you will have to bite the bullet and get a Bet366 account
The aspect that most irked me was the statement that we'll try and again next year, almost don't worry it will be different that time, without addressing the problems why it has a history of failure
It ultimately comes down to CI get 20% of 30 mill per franchise (CS and KNCB take a marginal cut but it's still a big one-time cash injection). Then they can say they're hosting cricket even tho it's being paid for by someone else. It isn't about building audiences in Europe, it's about convincing someone that enough of the sub-continent audience will watch and hoping they bite the bullet. That might have been the case in 2019 but there's now too much competition. I don't see the benefit of it at all unless they convince a few useful idiots to stump up the cash
In 2019 there was less competition, now it will bookended by MCL and 💯, now the calender is already over populated with T20 tournaments,
This 20% of €180M over 10 years, €3M+/year is an academic number that I don't think will ever be realised.
Just love to know how much energy, time and money has been spent chasing this dream, and although this can never be reclaimed, but the sunken cost fallacy seems to hold as they continue this process for 2026
Surely they need to recognise that this is dead, and focus on Abbotstown and improving the match days for the international team, but I fear we will be having the same conversation next year and lamenting the cancellation of the NZ test
Great read as always Nathan. I wonder if the delay in announcing central contracts is linked to this? Was the ETPL used as a bargaining tool to get the players on board after they initially rejected their deals last year?
The contracts have been agreed, just not announced for whatever reason. So there isn’t an issue there. CI have tried to use it as a bargaining tool in the past but player union pushed back