Home series revenues crucial

Disadvantaged by the recent International Cricket Council (ICC) regulation on payment for Tests and One-Day Internationals overseas, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) must maximise profits on home tours, president Reverend Wes Hall said yesterday.

Hall revealed on Tuesday that the WICB stands to lose US$300 000 (BDS$600 000) on its now-sanctioned forthcoming tour of Sri Lanka. He further explained the situation yesterday.

The projected deficit stems from an ICC decision, ratified a year ago, to standardise the fee paid to each touring team at US$62 500 per Test match and US$25 000 for each One-Day International.

The WICB had lost similarly on recent tours of Zimbabwe and Kenya and earned around US$750 000 less on its series in England last year than it had in 1995, Hall affirmed.

The Sri Lankan board would also take care of internal expenses on the tour that starts next week.

The WICB would be responsible for the return fares between the Caribbean and Colombo and the fees for the 16 players and three members of management.

It means we're getting US$362 500 for playing and we estimate that is going to leave us short by US$300 000 on our overall expenses, Hall said.

Previous arrangements were made on bilateral negotiations between the two participating boards.

With their drawing power, the West Indies could always expect healthy profits on tour, especially to the more affluent countries like Australia and England.

Hall explained that the WICB had depended on such tours in the past to boost its finances.

What this forces us to do is to make money on our home tours, he said, noting that the scheme should also reduce WICB's payments to visiting teams.

We can't lie down and play dead. We have to maximise our gate receipts, look to reduce costs wherever possible and generally make the best of the circumstances, he said.

Hall anticipated that successive tours to the Caribbean by India, Australia and England over the next three years would be profitable given their attraction and the revenue the WICB would gain in television rights.

But, under the ICC's future tours programme devised last year, each Test team has to play each other on a home and away basis.

It means us tacking on New Zealand, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as shorter, ancillary series to those tours and we wouldn't expect to make anything out of them, he said.

The 2007 World Cup, that has been assigned to the West Indies, should create a huge windfall of as much as US$100 million to the region, if well managed, Hall estimated.

It's the last World Cup that the host country will take the profits, so we've got to make sure it is properly managed, he said. After that, all the money goes into the ICC pot.

The WICB have become so much more efficient in its ticketing arrangements that takings for Tests and One-Day Internationals had increased by 91 per cent in the past five years, Hall said. But he noted continuing constraints.

We still have the reality that our grounds are small by international standards and that, at some, there is a large membership from which the board collects no revenue.