[hendrix]

Originally Posted by banquetbear

...from what I've been able to find on the net: the original pitch was for six franchise teams to participate, each of them paying $40 million for the honour. Unfortunately the people and companies that were approached balked at that offer and sent a collective letter of non-interest. The terms "over-valued" were bandied about. So instead of recruiting A Grade Stars: the league probably has to recruit from the ranks of Afghanistan, Ireland, Scotland and Kenya. (And probably salaried NZ players will be forced to play as well.)

Interestingly the article said that NZ Cricket is not investing direct cash: so would be interested in knowing what they have invested to get a 25% stake.

I've written a couple of business plans and if someone had shown me this one I would have said run away. No venues, no investors, a speculative customer base and the potential for a diluted end product. And NZ Cricket are locked in by contract and can't walk away. I'm sorry that most of my posts are about the clowns who are running NZ Cricket: but the people who are running NZ Cricket are a bunch of clowns.

Fair enough