CanadaCricket.com Forum

I think we have to be realistic and look at other models around the world. If this tournament manages to run its 22 games, it will be a logisitical achievement - a miracle in such a short time - but likely a financial disaster that will not see a repeat. Even first class cricket, and list A cricket, with some of the best players in the world, hemorrhages money. Most professional international teams hemorrhage money. Even Cricket South Africa couldn't get enough money from TV to stage their T20 comp. It is incredibly difficult to support professional cricket, even in countries where the sport is mainstream and long established. There is no example in history of professional cricket succeeding in a place where the game is an obscure minority pastime. Every example of cricket in the USA or Canada has hemorrhaged money and collapsed. No matter how many expats you hope to draw, it will never be enough to sustain it. The costs of land, building and maintaining a stadium, taxes on the land, insurance, employment, etc, etc, go far above the pitiful return you could make. Whether it's in King City or Mississauga, none of that changes. Canada is in the middle of nowhere. Even professional baseball, drawing crowds of 25,000 per game, is nowhere near enough to sustain itself outside Toronto. Let alone throw in all the bullshit and dreadful organisation of almost every organising cricket body in North America. Who the hell would pay to watch West Indies B vs Winnipeg on TV at cricket at 2 in the morning? 25 years in a row? Which advertiser would pay millions to have their ads shown throughout that and expect a return? If it were a mainstream sport, with organisation on a par with the NHL, things would be different. But cricket in Canada will never be that unfortunately. Every year we hear this dream. Not once has anyone come close. Cricket Ireland is light years ahead of cricket here, and even it lost one million euros on a one-off Test - a televised Test with large numbers of pre-sold tickets, sponsors, grants and more. You don't see them advertising month-long cricket festivals, certainly not with an invisible ticketing system that pops up a week before the event.

Regarding T20....any news on who will be Umpiring? I am an Umpire and member of TCUSA (Toronto Cricket Umpire and Scorers Association) and heard nothing about this. Sincerely hope that Canadian Umps will be used in this tournament - would be great for our game!

For all you hard-core Edmonton Royals fans: Yashi Sports is selling Royals T-Shirts and hats ( and, for the other Canadian sides, too ).
https://yashisports.com/shop?olsPage=pr ... 3ecfe4d9ac

I hope they made large quantities of the personalized "Lamichhane" Montreal Tigers jerseys for all the Nepali fans.

Dilip Pachchigar and Harry Grewal from Vancouver are involved. Consequently, they are unavailable for the Western Canada t20, the BC Big Bash and the Canada Cup u17 tournaments all being held in Surrey.

GTt20 to be broadcast! Cue up that huge Vancouver-Edmonton rivalry!

Any news on telecast..seems inbeliveable that there will be no broadcast with so many big players playing! That could make or break the tournament..

What's this about? Have some players not shown up?

Cricket Canada @canadiancricket 06/26/2018 3:47am

Ten @Cricket Canada players added to #GT20Canada Squads. https://t.co/2wH6pJo3Pr

Edit: It turns out this is Mercuri's effort to help Canadian cricket, providing 10 more places for players to be in and around the professionals. I would have liked to see a few more from the U19 team, such as Gill and Joshi but this is good.

Jimmy Hansra
Ravinder Pal Singh
Navneet Dhaliwal
Varun Sehdev
Arslan Khan
Dhanuka Pathirana
Bhavindhu Adhihetty
Armaan Kapoor
Bhupinder Singh Sohal
Faisal Jamkhandi

mautan wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 26, 2018 7:45 am

Any news on telecast..seems inbeliveable that there will be no broadcast with so many big players playing! That could make or break the tournament..

It does seem a little strange. You would think the lure of a foreign broadcast contract had Mercuri seeing multi-million dollar profits in order for them to be willing to invest so much in the GT20. You would think they had something lined up before they went ahead with all of this. It is inconceivable that Mercuri spent so much without good reason. Right??!

Wait ... hold the phone, the broadcasters have been named: https://twitter.com/GT20Canada/status/1 ... al-players. I hope this helps the bottom line.
Broadcaster partners:
India - Star Sports
UK - Free Sports
Canada - Asian Television Network
Australia - Fox Sports
Pakistan - Geo Sports
Middle East - OSN
Bangladesh: Ghazi Sports
Caribbean: SportMax

Multiple players stuck overseas without visas: https://www.thenational.ae/sport/cricke ... 0-1.744112

Have heard it's the same with the Pakistani players. Don't know if Boom Boom got through. Sohail Tanvir made it. Don't know about the Afghan players, Nepali players and others. Could severely dent attendance.

The TV streaming they have is worth pennies. The trouble with pay per view is once one person has it, everyone else streams it for free via Kodi. They must have been absolutely desperate. What quality of broadcasting will it be? One camera? In a fixed position? Commentary? Replays? Silence from the crowd? Able to hold and audience for 22 games?

If ticket sales and this streaming are their only source of income, this stands to lose millions. Genuinely surprised they have gotten this far. We will see what the first week holds in store...