Surrey introduce ballot for London derby

Surrey have introduced a ballot to cope with demand for their NatWest T20 Blast match against Middlesex at The Oval.

The match has sold out for the last three seasons so, in an attempt to meet demand and gain data from the largest possible audience, the club have now decided to treat the game as they would an international fixture.

It is anticipated that attendances for the T20 Blast will rise beyond a million for the first time in 2017. The tournament has been moved back into high summer - it has started in mid-May for the last couple of years - meaning it can take advantage of the warmer weather and school holidays. Surrey's home match against Middlesex will take place on Friday, July 21.

"Over the last four years, half-a-million people have seen Surrey play T20 cricket at The Oval," Surrey chief executive Richard Gould told ESPNcricinfo. "65% of those people had never previously attended a professional cricket match and 125,000 of them were either women or U-16s.

"The current competition, when well marketed and staged, is very effective at reaching a new audience."

The timing of the announcement comes not only as the ECB release the domestic fixture list for 2017 but as they renewed calls on the counties to sign a document (a redrafted version of which was circulated this week) handing over their media rights to the ECB until the end of 2024. As things stand, several of the counties argue that there is no specific agreement preventing them from selling domestic matches at their own grounds independently of the ECB.

The original version of the document found little support - ESPNcricinfo understands that about a third of the counties signed it - and while the new version clarifies a few details (the counties are guaranteed £1.3m each a year on top of their current ECB income if they all sign), it specifies that they agree to all aspects of the new team T20 competition the ECB is planning from 2020.

As counties do not currently know where or when those games will be staged, what the teams will be called, what other cricket will take place at the same time and the value of the alternative broadcast deal, there are several - perhaps even a majority - that are reluctant to sign. Until they do so, the ECB cannot be certain that they can prevent a breakaway league, though in reality that remains unlikely.

Meanwhile a report commissioned by Surrey - who are leading the opposition to the eight-team competition favoured by the ECB - and distributed among the counties has cast doubt on the valuations obtained by the ECB for the relative worth of the different T20 competitions. While the ECB valuation suggested broadcast rights for the current competition were worth between £5-7m a year and a new eight-team competition worth between £30-35m, the new report concludes that they "are significantly undervaluing the broadcast appeal of county T20 cricket."

While domestic cricket is officially ascribed a nil value in the broadcast deal between the ECB and Sky, the new report suggests that Sky unofficially ascribed 20% of the value of the deal with the ECB (currently £65m a year) to county cricket when tendering for 2009. That provided a value of £13m to domestic competitions. With the "increased profile" of modern T20, the report suggests that value can now be increased to 20-25%, providing a value of £16.25m between 2014-2017 and £23.12m between 2018-2019, when the worth of the current broadcast deal increases to £92.5m a year.

The report also notes that, since BT Sport added competition to the broadcast market, the value of deals for domestic football and rugby has increased markedly.

The report concludes that a re-launched T20 competition involving all 18 first-class counties, sold on the open market and starting in 2020 could be worth "around £35m a year."

It would seem to underline the findings of an independent report by Oliver and Ohlbaum, analysts of the media and entertainment industries, from August which concluded "there is little consumer demand for the proposed city-based T20 competition even among younger and currently more casual fans of cricket."

"Over 80% of sports fans surveyed by O&O this summer showed no interest at all in a city-based T20 competition," it said.

That report concluded that the ECB had "lost out on" an "estimated £60m" of potential broadcast revenue "when it did its last TV deal, back in 2011 just before BT Sport entered the market."