Less smoke and mirrors, more substance required for success.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
AN espresso at the hotel in the posh Knightsbridge district of London where CSA launched what was then to be called the T20 Global League (T20GL) costs £8. You can buy a better coffee in the grittier east end of the city for almost a quarter of that price.
Not that attendees at the function, held the day after Pakistan thrashed India by 180 runs in the 2017 Champions Trophy final at the Oval, were asked to pay for anything. Some of them, especially the former South Africa players flown out especially for the occasion and who had no connection to the tournament, might have wondered why they were there. At least the South African journalists present, whose trip to London was also paid for by CSA, could report to earn their keep.
CSA’s attempts to join the travelling circus of franchise T20 tournaments has been more about smoke and mirrors than substance. Might the as yet unnamed event CSA announced on Friday, to be inaugurated in January 2023, be different? It has two cautionary tales to learn from.
What was rebranded, for some no doubt expensive reason, as the Global League T20 (GLT20) never happened. Instead the planning for it became the hook on which to hang Haroon Lorgat’s CSA blazer as he exited the chief executive’s office in September 2017. The board and Lorgat, a release at the time said, had “mutually agreed to part ways with immediate effect”. The separation was anything but amicable. The board said Lorgat wasn’t sharing with them important information about the tournament. Lorgat said he was getting on with his job, an important part of which was seeing a project he had conceptualised to fruition.
Expectations had been that the T20GL or GLT20 or whatever it was going to end up being called would pump more than USD30-million into CSA’s coffers annually purely from the franchise owners’ licensing fees. Instead the cancellation cost CSA USD2-million in refunded deposits to the owners, who were paid another USD1.44-million in settlements.
That was a bad outcome, but maybe not the worst. To say the owners didn’t inspire confidence is putting it politely. One of them was intent on hosting gatherings in a strip club. Another wondered lonely as a cloud about launching a satellite into space to beam matches back to earth. There were allegations of nepotism in the awarding of supplier contracts at still another franchise.
The stillborn tournament morphed into the Mzansi Super League (MSL), which did see the light of day — or even the floodlights of day/night — in 2018. And again in 2019. It looked good on television, it involved prominent players, foreign and domestic, and it gleamed as a seeming success in a South African cricket administration landscape strewn with scrapheaps of failure. But those two editions of the MSL cost CSA more than USD12-million and became emblematic of the governance catastrophes that blighted the game under Thabang Moroe, Lorgat’s since sacked successor. Consequently the tournament hasn’t been seen since, and not only because of the pandemic.
A release on Friday said the six franchises who will play in the new venture would be privately owned, unlike the MSL sides, who were the property of CSA. The key difference with both previous attempts is that SuperSport are on board. A major factor in the plug being pulled on the GLT20 was the lack of a confirmed broadcaster. The first sticking point was that CSA considered the tournament new business, and thus worthy of an additional payment from longtime broadcast partners SuperSport — who argued that the GLT20 should be covered in what they had already paid. CSA won that debate, but then the parties couldn’t reach an understanding about how much more was warranted.
The MSL was shown on the free-to-air South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) channels. That meant it reached a far larger audience than if it had been on SuperSport, which is part of an expensive subscription service. But it also meant CSA made no money, because the cash-strapped SABC, the state broadcaster, paid nothing for the rights.
So the fact that CSA and SuperSport have, according to Friday’s release, “signed an agreement to form a new company that will manage” the competition is good news. It means the domestic rights are in the hands of a trusted broadcaster. And, probably, that fences between CSA and SuperSport are being mended.
In December and January, SuperSport said they would divest from longstanding partnerships with CSA’s affiliates in the Western Province and KwaZulu-Natal. SuperSport are among few symbols of excellence in a struggling national economy. Their decisions matter. In February, Cricbuzz requested an interview with SuperSport chief executive Marc Jury, a former CSA commercial manager, to discuss the reasons for the divestment and their implications. We were asked to provide written questions, which we did. The interview never materialised, but SuperSport wrote back with answers, which they said could be attributed to Jury. Here are the questions and the answers:
What will change for the South African cricketlover now that SuperSport are not invested in the game as directly as they were before, and why?
“You will be aware that the SuperSport investments in cricket teams go back as far as two decades to a time when cricket became increasingly professional globally. As equity partners, we have enjoyed excellent relationships with the teams concerned.”
Is it too cynical to think SuperSport have divested from the entities that cost too much and have become too much of a drag on your resources? If not, why not?
“Both the Dolphins and Western Province have enjoyed success on the playing fields over many years and have had stable governance and administration systems. We have been proud to assist these franchises in achieving their success.”
Because of SuperSport’s investment they have had a significant influence on important issues in cricket that go beyond broadcasters’ accepted remit. Why would you give that up?
“SuperSport regularly reviews all investments to determine whether such investments still fit within the company’s overall strategic approach to our business.”
In a release announcing SuperSport’s divestment from Western Province, you were quoted as saying: “Cricket is moving into an exciting space and we at SuperSport look forward to what is to come.” Could you elaborate on what that exciting space might be, and on what is to come?
“Given these reviews and recent changes in the domestic competitions structure of CSA, we deemed it an appropriate time to divest as equity partners while continuing our relationships with the cricket teams in areas other than as shareholders. We have entered into sponsorship agreements with both the Dolphins and WP Cricket to further underpin our satisfaction with the way in which they conduct their business and as part of our commitment to continue contributing to South African cricket.”
South African sport would be far smaller and more impoverished without SuperSport, but do you accept that the company’s multiple roles could be seen as fostering conflicts of interest?
“SuperSport remains committed to South African cricket, in particular, and in general to South African and African sport and we will continue to invest in sport and our young sporting talent. In this regard, we have, for example, now invested in a streaming platform, SuperSport Schools, with the focus on giving exposure to school sport across sports codes throughout the country.”
If all that leaves you with the impression that SuperSport want to put as much corporate-speak as possible between themselves and the people who pay handsomely to watch their channels, you are not alone. The company have become a byword for steely aloofness that sometimes spills over into arrogance. But they are also the barometer of what constitutes success in sport in South Africa. Coming after the GLT20 debacle and the divestments, Friday’s news looks like a signal that relations between the two organisations have improved.
And that SuperSport has retained enough trust in CSA to build on their existing relationship despite the troubling departure of the respected Graeme Smith, who did not want to continue as director of cricket when his contract expired at the end of March. The agreement will also be seen as a vote of confidence in Pholetsi Moseki, CSA’s new chief executive.
Was Smith involved in the planning for the new tournament? How about former IPL chief operating officer Sundar Raman? Their names weren’t mentioned in Friday’s release, and when CSA were asked whether either they had worked on the project, a spokesperson said: “If any other players are involved, that information would have found its way into the issued release.” Cricbuzz have been told Smith and Raman were part of the process.
The next trick will be to sell the rights internationally, and for the newly formed company to secure investors. That tenders have apparently yet to be called for will raise eyebrows, not least because that was part of the reason CSA’s board cited for canning the GLT20.
If all goes well, six teams will take the field early next January — the only regularly available window in the T20 calendar — to play 33 matches. As was the case in the MSL, the selected XIs will include foreign players and will not have to meet CSA’s transformation targets. The sides will play a double round of matches, and the top three will progress to the knockout rounds.
We’re a long way from that happening. If it happens. But we know that, by then, the price of an espresso in Knightsbridge will have risen. And that we will have seen more smoke and mirrors.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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