One-day prize money could go up next year

The England and Wales Cricket Board is to consider increasing the prize money to the finalists of both knockout domestic finals next year, after Gloucestershire claimed they will only just break even from their historic treble-winning season.

Despite winning the National League title as well as the Benson & Hedges Cup and NatWest Trophy, Gloucestershire reckon they'll do no more than balance the books this season.

Colin Sextone, Gloucestershire's chief executive, estimates they will have lost between £5,000 and £10,000 on each final, with the £105,000 prize money going into the players' pool, while the club also paid bonuses equal to the prize money to increase the financial burden.

Sextone has written to Tim Lamb, chief executive of the ECB, and the item is on the agenda for next week's meeting of the county chief executives.

"We're talking about it as soon as next week," confirmed Lamb. "Colin has written to me and has said it's a matter he wants to put through the system for discussion over the course of the next few months.

"We will certainly look at it to see if there might be some way to provide a greater financial reward to the finalist in the two knockout competitions next year.

"I have already put this on the agenda at the meeting of the county chief executives and we'll all form part of the budgetary process next year and look to see if we can improve the situation for 2001."

Lamb believes Gloucestershire's problems are partly caused by a shortfall in revenue this season caused by the introduction of central contracts, an increase in staging payments made to Test match grounds, and less television revenue because there were only four Tests last summer.

Lamb said: "We have had to undertake a stringent belt-tightening exercise. It's been a very tight financial year for us and we announced that at the start of the season.

"We had to engage in a major cost-cutting exercise and we deliberately decided that all areas of the game had to take their share of cuts.

"There were various cuts made and we reduced the payments of the finalists of the two Lord's finals because that was another area where we had to find some savings.

"Every year we set a budget and we have to cut our cloth accordingly. We were in a situation where we had to find some fairly severe savings and nobody was spared the pain."

At present, semi-finalists in each competition can only keep 10% each of the gate receipts and finalists just 6%, with the ECB receiving the balance for distribution among the counties.