UK pay-television broadcaster Sky has offered the England and Wales Cricket Board £40m (€56m/$62m) annually for the global rights to a proposed city-based Twenty20 tournament slated to launch in 2017, according to The Observer.
The UK newspaper said English cricket’s governing body is close to finalising a relaunch of its domestic T20 Blast competition, which would feature eight city teams as opposed to 18 first-class counties. Sky is behind the plan to stage the tournament in a three- to four-week block in mid-summer – a similar structure to Australia’s successful Big Bash League, and a scheduling that would allow England players often ruled out of domestic matches to compete.
There remains opposition to the plans from a number of the counties but The Observer said part of the Sky fee would be used to placate these concerns, which include objections to reducing the number of first-class County Championship matches from 16 to 12 per season to make room for the new tournament. The ECB is also understood to remain open to retaining a T20 competition featuring the counties in their traditional form.
The ECB or the host county is likely to own the city teams, as opposed to the private company franchise model used in the Indian Premier League. The ECB recently appointed Mike Fordham to its commercial team, the vice-president of the IMG agency who oversaw the launch of both the IPL and the Caribbean Premier League.