Daniel Gidney says ECB’s ladies’s home T20 pageant wishes identify sponsor

Lancashire had been primary traders in Thunder in England’s regional competitions since 2020, with lend a hand from two sponsors in Hilton and Sportsbreaks.com. They’ll have a full-time squad of 15 execs this yr and travelled to Dubai and Bangalore final month, their 3rd successive pre-season excursion.

They had been some of the counties pushing for a transformation within the home construction which might empower them to speculate extra of their ladies’s staff and Gidney mentioned that he was once “completely delighted” that Lancashire will host a Tier 1 facet from subsequent season. “I have at all times believed that if you’ll do that, you need to do it correctly,” he instructed ESPNcricinfo.

To that finish, Gidney believes the ECB should discover a identify sponsor for the Charlotte Edwards Cup – the regional T20 pageant – and make investments extra in advertising video games out of doors of the Hundred. The ECB have dedicated to making an investment round £19 million in ladies’s home cricket by means of 2027.

“There may be a large number of historical past of fellows’s sports activities sponsors short of ladies’s competitions as an add-on,” Gidney mentioned. “We are now at a level the place the Charlotte Edwards Cup must be subsidized, it must have England avid gamers to be had, and it must be taken significantly. There have been extra other folks at our quarter-final at Blackpool final yr than at Finals Day at New Highway.”

The Charlotte Edwards Cup falls below Sky Sports activities’ TV rights handle English cricket, which runs from 2024-28, however the channel has hardly ever broadcast suits from the contest, which might be as a substitute in large part to be had by way of loose on-line reside streams. Richard Gould, the ECB’s leader govt, mentioned any adjustments will best be regarded as ahead of the following rights cycle, which is able to get started in 2029.

“If we ship on what we intention to ship, that may be a herbal result of what we intention to do,” he mentioned on Thursday on the release of the ECB’s nationwide tape-ball pageant. “Nowadays, we fall again on streaming platforms for far of our skilled home cricket at county stage and we’re going to be doing the similar for the ladies, however in the end, that is what we need to do.”

Whilst the 3 males’s county competitions all have headline sponsors, the ladies’s regional equivalents don’t. Gould would no longer be drawn on sponsorship, pronouncing: “I might no longer need to move into that at this level.” Gidney mentioned: “This pageant wishes a identify sponsor this is paying right kind cash, and we wish to get it broadcast.

“We should not simply be giving property away to other folks: it is insulting to all the ladies’s skilled cricketers we have now in the United Kingdom now. It is a right kind game that has actual price. The highest [level] of ladies’s elite game in English cricket is the Hundred, however that isn’t the one home skilled cricket on the town.”

Gidney believes the transfer clear of a regional construction funded predominantly by means of the ECB and in opposition to a county style displays the velocity of commercialisation in ladies’s game. “On the time the regional construction was once presented, it was once all about accelerating efficiency, building of abilities and professionalism,” he mentioned.

“However other folks underestimated the velocity at which elite ladies’s skilled game has grow to be commercialised: take a look at the superb successes of the Lionesses, the Purple Roses, sell-out video games for Arsenal’s ladies on the Emirates Stadium, the Ladies’s Premier League. The cash that has are available and the extent of engagement from a brand new fanbase has been mad.

“Deloitte put out a record to mention that they consider in 2024, ladies’s elite game will grow to be a billion-dollar trade… you need to inspire innovation and generate business source of revenue to lend a hand develop ladies’s elite game. We are delighted to be a a success Tier 1 membership, however that includes large accountability. I will’t now use it as an excuse that the ECB are keeping me again.”

Gidney believes that the delicate procedure for Tier 1 groups has demonstrated which counties are “critical” about making an investment in ladies’s cricket. “I sat in a single assembly and one CEO mentioned, ‘for those who get it and we do not, you might be getting extra earnings off the ECB.’ I mentioned, ‘I am astonished you have used the phrase ‘earnings’ on this context.’ The cash that comes from the ECB is only a share of what must be invested into the ladies’s programme to make it a success.

“A couple of years in the past, there was once one non-Check fit flooring county that took some huge cash from the ECB for its academy. They spent £20,000 at the academy, and the remainder on a Kolpak speedy bowler. Authenticity is essential. In case you are critical, you need to put your cash and your movements the place your mouth is, and I might problem any one to mention that Lancashire hasn’t executed that during the previous few years.”

Thunder – who’ve appointed Chris Learn, the previous England wicketkeeper, as their trainer forward of the approaching regional season – will play seven fixtures at Outdated Trafford this yr, probably the most that any regional staff will play at a males’s Check venue. The previous away dressing room on the flooring has already been transformed into a house dressing room for the ladies’s staff.

Lancashire also are development a brand new facility at Farington, close to Preston, which is able to grow to be a coaching base for his or her males’s and ladies’s groups and can level some first-team suits in addition to second-team and pathway fixtures. However Gidney stressed out: “Emirates Outdated Trafford is the house of Lancashire Cricket – for each our males and our ladies.”

Outdated Trafford may even level ladies’s global cricket once more from 2025, greater than a decade since its most up-to-date fixture. Gidney desires to host Ladies’s T20 Global Cup suits there in 2026: “We’ve not were given a males’s Check fit in 2026, so we’re very hopeful about that.”