cricket a dying sport in non south asian countries?

[Spark]

Good point re the tv rights, can't believe they are not on free to air.

Friends I have who are English say things like it is only for the rich in England

There is no real problem in Aust. still very popular and almost everyone born in Australia follows it to some extent

Yeah even people who wouldn't describe themselves as cricket fans at all, or even don't particularly like cricket, still show more than a passing interest in seeing Australia do well.

 

[Howe_zat]

Cricket is still very much a minority sport here, at least among people my age. I live with 8 other students and none of them watch any cricket - all but one didn't know the World Cup was going on.

The lack of interest in it compared to football is hard to describe, but that's mostly because football as seen by the majority is closer to a soap opera than a sport. Cricket is probably the second most watched sport in the country. I think that sports fans in general are a minority here.

 

[GIMH]

Many English posters on this board were angry when FTA no longer had the cricket, and then were angry when they were going to get it back, referencing the loss of money for English cricket if Sky no longer had it.

So really, what is the best result? People on CW don't seem to know...

I think live FTA is a thing of the past, and that's that.

What is needed though, is better coverage on terrestrial. Better highlights packages. At the minute Channel Five do 45 minutes, with two breaks, of each Home Test and ODI. That's not enough. One day when pakistan were here in 06 they donated the whole show only to scoring shots from Yousuf on a day he'd batted through. Don't get me wrong - that was undoubtedly the highlight, but not having Sky Sports that summer it was a bit frustrating when I wanted to see the wickets we had taken, or runs the other batsmen had scored, etc.

I find it hard to believe BBC could not put a decent length highlights package on across one of their four channels. An hour and a half is maybe too optimistic but that would be ideal. And some sort of magazine show on a Saturday morning, like Football Focus.

Live sport doesn't have to be on FTA for kids to take an interest. The best football through most of the year has been on PAY TV for nearly twenty years and the sport has, if anything, grown in that time.

The IPL is on ITV4 now, that might actually help. Purists might scoff and say they want kids getting into 'real' cricket - some is better than none, whatever it is.

Kids don't need access to live sports, they simply need access to a sport. Better highlights coverage is the answer. The BBC only give a **** when it's Ashes/WC. They spend a bucketload on F1 and the like, and need to think about their approach to cricket.

 

[smash84]

Still not getting a clear picture about cricket in England.

Good to hear from Spark that cricket is doing well in Australia

I think the situation in WI seems to be pretty bad vis a vis cricket. Zimbabwe also seems do be going downhill.

 

[Bun]

Hehe are you itduzz @ OP?

 

[smash84]

Hehe are you itduzz @ OP?

????

 

[Borges]

> cricket a dying sport in non south asian countries?

No.

As I see it, it is a rapidly growing sport in South Asian countries.

It has reached the saturation level in countries like England and Australia. It can't grow, but hopefully, it can hold on to its present level.

What about the West Indies? I hate to admit it, but it is probably a dying sport there.

And the associate nations? Cricket doesn't want to die; but it is in the process of being murdered by the England, Australia and India.

 

[Turbinator]

I don't think it's that surprising, I don't know that many people who are really into cricket, outside my family and their cricketing friends. My boyfriend when I met him didn't know anything about it and none of his friends did either. He never played it at school, despite playing football, rugby and hockey.

I must qualify this with being a southerner (although my parents and grandparents are all Yorkshire and Lancashire). When my parents lived in the NE for a while, I could see that it seemed much more popular up there and in Yorkshire.

Wait a sec. You're a female poster?

EDIT: So a quick post search tells me you are. Cool

 

[quytst0rm]

What about the West Indies? I hate to admit it, but it is probably a dying sport there

That has lot to do with US influence and the West Indians embracing American sports such as basketball. Some caribbean nations like Jamaica, T&T, two most populated islands, are doing quite will in soccer by qualifying for the WC so that sparks a huge interest in the sport at the expense of cricket, the pay in soccer/basketball is also a lot better then cricket.

 

[BoyBrumby]

If someone's never been to the UK it might be hard to imagine quite what a hold football has on the public (sporting) imagination. Really one can't overstate it. It's pretty much impossible to be a sports fan over here and not at least have an opinion on it. Most of the English posters on here have something of an interest in the sport.

Cricket might well be second in our affections, but there's a real big drop off after #1.

 

[Maximus0723]

btw, i am from pakistan, so south asians dont take offense, but i am speaking the truth. we need to get involved in other sports like Football, atleast pakistan is a world champion in squash. I would love to see pakistan in a football worldcup. I think we should focus less on cricket and more on football, south asians go way overboard with the love of cricket, often its embarrasing infront of other people

oh ****, didn't know that.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Yeah, it's football - daylight - the rest. Stats.

From a grass roots perspective, I have seen a big increase in the amount of players being nominated for County and District trials at the U10/11 age group over the four years I've been involved in the system, but without wanting to blow my own trumpet, a good deal of that is down to the work I've been doing behind the scenes. The game that I see is certainly healthy, but I do tend to draw a couple of conclusions: (i) there's a thin layer of volunteers holding up a great deal of junior participation, and (ii) a lot of people's definitions of "good" seem to match my definition of "raw: average to poor".

 

[Analyst1]

The debate over Sky's money into development and having more people actually watching the game on FTA has been going on for a while now. The ECB missed their real chance after 2005. The sport still has a good base of fans. It will never beat football- a sport that I believed had the biggest stars and an interest that could not be matched by any sport in any country. And then I watched England play cricket in India. Absolutely unreal.

 

[Furball]

Many English posters on this board were angry when FTA no longer had the cricket, and then were angry when they were going to get it back, referencing the loss of money for English cricket if Sky no longer had it.

So really, what is the best result? People on CW don't seem to know...

It's a hard balancing act: Channel 4 having the home Tests live certainly helped me get into the game, and the fact that the Ashes were live on Channel 4 certainly made a huge difference, as I'd moved out into my own flat and didn't have Sky Sports in 2005. Had the Ashes been inaccessible to watch, I might not be as enthusiastic about cricket as I am now.

However, at the same time, Sky invest a lot of money in English cricket with the money they pay for TV rights. Guaranteeing the Ashes on FTA would certainly help bring in more people to the sport - but what's the use of that if they've got nowhere to play the sport because local clubs and coaches have to close down due to lack of funding?

 

[Furball]

Interesting. I was surprised only because I know England makes the most money after India, and that their tickets are hugely expensive, so I was expecting more demand - but it's very possible that I just happened to meet people from the wrong geographic regions.

Here's a stat which might suprise you (and a few others) - in terms of participation, cricket is the 2nd most popular sport in Scotland (in fact, I believe I've read that per head of population, more people in Scotland play cricket than in England - but I can't remember where I read that, so can't verify it.)

 

[Challis]

Quite an interesting topic after a pretty awful opening post.
The pros and cons of Sky involvement have already been mentioned here but one thing that could help the situation is if more (non England) cricket was on FTA. We all know how popular cricket is with the South Asian community so why not show highlights of games involving India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It doesn't have to be prime TV, or even on any of the main channels, put it on ITV4 like the IPL is. I bet their would be a decent number of viewers like the IPL gets.

 

[smash84]

Quite an interesting topic after a pretty awful opening post.

So true. In my short time at CW I have seen few worst opening posts

 

[Gooch20]

Gooch20 = Shahid Afridi

 

[slugger]

i just want to add my 2 cents to this debate. I live in a country where the number one sport is rugby. we are hosting the world cup rugby, there will be three channels in NZ showing it live on free to air tv. The Moari Chn, TV3 and TV One. Also SkyTV will also show it.

In 1992 dueing the world cup cricket it was free to air on one channel but only showcased. NZ games and semi's and finals.

By 1996 no cricket was free to air on NZ TV.

At no time during my life time in NZ has domestic cricket (that i know of) ever been showing on tv. The sport news doesnt even give results from the 4 day, or one day domestic comp.

*** the other day wangner took 5 wickets in one over, the covage was caught on a mobile phone camera so quailty was terrible. I have written many times to NZ TV asking them to have a show dedicated to nz domestic cricket.

but they just continue to fight over rugby... while domestic cricket dies a slow death.

 

[smash84]

i just want to add my 2 cents to this debate. I live in a country where the number one sport is rugby. we are hosting the world cup rugby, there will be three channels in NZ showing it live on free to air tv. The Moari Chn, TV3 and TV One. Also SkyTV will also show it.

In 1992 dueing the world cup cricket it was free to air on one channel but only showcased. NZ games and semi's and finals.

By 1996 no cricket was free to air on NZ TV.

At no time during my life time in NZ has domestic cricket (that i know of) ever been showing on tv. The sport news doesnt even give results from the 4 day, or one day domestic comp.

*** the other day wangner took 5 wickets in one over, the covage was caught on a mobile phone camera so quailty was terrible. I have written many times to NZ TV asking them to have a show dedicated to nz domestic cricket.

but they just continue to fight over rugby... while domestic cricket dies a slow death.

Seems like a sad state of affairs for cricket