The perils of saturation

A report in today's Times newspaper warns that the public response to the Champions Trophy looks like being decidedly lukewarm. Despite England's outstanding summer, only 5000 tickets have been pre-sold for their opening match against Zimbabwe at Edgbaston - where the capacity is 18,000 - and sales for some of the other games are equally sluggish.

While the authorities are enthusiastically marketing the matches and upping the hype, the danger is that the tournament will kick off against a backdrop of empty seats. And while England are a drawcard, the prospect of watching what will probably be a woefully one-sided match against a depleted Zimbabwe side is not going to encourage many to take a day off work.

Sales for matches involving India and Pakistan are good, with tickets for their clash at Edgbaston on Sunday week sold out within hours. But other games are mixed. While thousands of tickets have been issued for Friday's other match - between New Zealand and the USA at The Oval - the number planning to attend will only be known on the day, as the bulk of the tickets were given away as prizes during Twenty20 matches earlier in the summer.

And the format of the tournament means that the first week's games are, to put it politely, fairly unappetising, with no meaningful contest likely until England meet Sri Lanka on the eighth day (assuming West Indies' freefall doesn't extend to their losing to Bangladesh). With all the matches at three venues - Southampton's Rose Bowl completes the set - the organisers are asking many of the same people to attend time and time again. Spectators are more likely to keep their powder dry for the big games in the second week, especially if they think that tickets will be easy to come by.

The underlying reasons for the poor sales appear to be threefold. First, the time of year is wrong as, in most people's minds, the cricket season ends in early September and the public's interest is now switching to football.

Secondly, the English weather in September is notoriously fickle, and spectators may well be sheltering from driving rain and cold rather than basking in the sun in shirt-sleeves. People are likely to wait until the day before shelling out any cash.

Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, there have already been seven Tests and 14 ODIs in England in the last four months. At around £40 a day it's not cheap to go and watch, and people's pockets are not bottomless. England's success might even have indirectly undermined sales, with punters preferring to spend their money on win after win for the home side, rather than these end-of-season one-dayers. Even last Sunday's appetising clash between Australia and Pakistan at Lord's, where the weather was glorious, was played out to only two-thirds capacity. (Again, some potential spectators were put off by the high price of tickets.)

The authorities have gambled on good weather, and the heatwave which has hit southern England over the last week hinted that they might just get away with it. But, depressingly, the forecasters are predicting that the weather will break this weekend, and that more seasonal lower temperatures and rain will return.

Martin Williamson is managing editor of Wisden Cricinfo.