Cricket: Bold venture targets US

New Zealand Cricket's commercial venture to tap into the North American market is about to take its first practical step. An international premier league, similar to the Indian Premier League, is targeted to launch in June or July.

Organised by Cricket Holdings America (a company with the United States governing body and NZC as shareholders), the league is targeting six teams of Twenty20 players based around the cities of Fort Lauderdale (where New Zealand played Twenty20 internationals against Sri Lanka in May last year), Toronto, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia as potential hosts. No firm dates are set but June seems the most practical.

That comes after the IPL when only England, the West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have commitments under the future tours programme (FTP). The tournament is expected to be held over three weeks.

In an ambitious plan scoped out over 8-10 years, CHA (and NZC) are hopeful of selling the six franchises to investors for a total of up to US$240 million.

Neil Maxwell is NZC's director on CHA, which holds the rights to cricket played in the United States. NZC are lending intellectual property and operations skills to the company while private investors provide the working capital.

Maxwell (44) is a former first class cricketer in Australia who had a season at Canterbury when he was marketing manager for NZC from 1996-99. Maxwell says his biggest claim to fame was "taking New Zealand out of those beige uniforms".

He now runs his own marketing firm called Insite Organisation, based in Sydney. He was once chief executive of the IPL franchise Kings XI Punjab and has been an agent for the likes of Brett Lee, Adam Gilchrist and Michael Hussey.

Maxwell recognises it is an ambitious venture but says the rewards for success are substantial: "Cricket is one of the only global sports that survives off country vs country competition. Most sports like football do it off league competition. The game needs to broaden its horizons. We can't rest on our laurels and allow just 10 test-playing nations to represent cricket worldwide.

"When full member countries are struggling with test cricket - one of the sport's three main products - it makes it hard to convince developing countries to embrace that. T20 is a door opener to new markets.

"I know it is hard for traditionalists to accept but I'd rather build an international cricketing model which has 100,000 people making a living out of the game than the few thousand that currently do.

"The mistake we've made in the past is trying to grow the game organically from the bottom up in new markets. For the game to be successful, it needs a launching pad with a top-down approach.

"That means providing high-profile competitions as exposure. Ultimately we need the ICC to allocate a T20 World Cup to the US. America is second-to-none as a commercial market - cricket needs a stake in that."

Some investors will put their money into the set-up infrastructure while others, including targeted big spenders from India, will put cash into the new franchises which will be marketed in January and February.

"I expect the six initial franchises to fetch US$25 million-US$40 million each," Maxwell says. "That will be paid off over 8-10 years to give franchise owners local rights and a percentage of central distributions. We expect up to four more franchises to be added in future years."

Outgoing NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan says they're aiming for it to be a lucrative arm of their business in less than 10 years but are conscious of managing risk.

"We are working at getting support from the ICC to convince them it's in cricket's interest to expand. Our motivation is to generate revenue from sources outside the Black Caps. At the moment 90 per cent of our income comes through 11 guys who wear a fern on their cap. The [CHA] enterprise will make a loss for the first few years but we're determined to look at ways of growing."

NZC is looking to work with full member countries from the International Cricket Council to communicate the specifics of the new tournament. Players are likely to be approached to register interest early next year.

In a twin strand, New Zealand is still looking to stage international T20 matches in the United States during their tour of the West Indies next July. The West Indies are apparently keen to play in the likes of Fort Lauderdale in Florida which has an ICC-approved venue.

The broadcast rights could be sold to India - a match starting at 10am on the east coast of the US would screen at 8.30pm in India. However, NZC wants to improve the Fort Lauderdale wicket quality from last year.

"We're pushing to use artificial pitches because at T20 level we don't think the pitch has a major impact on the game," says Maxwell. "That would give us far greater flexibility to stage matches."

It would also increase their scope for venues. With the Indian market a target, major universities are on Maxwell's hit list.

"Some of those establishments want a cultural bridge with India. Hosting a franchise would be a win-win because it means a university would be promoted like never before to the sub-continent with the large number of students who want to come across to study.

"We were also told by one ICC member that if we got guarantees from councils to provide international standard venues then America would be a candidate to host an ICC event. It's a bit chicken and egg, but we're working at it."