Realizing Pakistan Cricket's Financial Potential

 Cricket has changed. It is no longer just a game; it has a financial side to it as well and gradually this side has attained the place of being the most important aspect of the game. You win or lose, the net worth of your biggest star, how much cricket you are going to get it all comes to the finances or the financial side of the game. At the moment, it is the end, and the game of cricket has been reduced to just being a means to the end. Elaborating on the point I raised above, today's amount of cricket a team gets is directly proportional to financial dividends attributed to its cricket which is why the big three (India, Australia & England) play each more often than the rest of the boards. It is hurting that someone like Babar who is a once-in-a-generation player is only going to get 15 games in the 2024 to 2027 cycle. This is a grave injustice to the player and the game.

The change that I talked about earlier is not our doing. When the game was changing, we were in isolation. The year 2010, changed Pakistan cricket for good and bad. Bad because we had already lost the privilege of playing cricket in Pakistan but we also lost our credibility which hampered our brand’s value and good because the Lord’s experience helped us to develop a new cricketing culture in Pakistan which was very different from the one, we had in the 90’s. It was this good change and the able leadership of Misbah ul Haq that made us the number 1 test team in the world. Those push-ups in Lord’s rejuvenated the brand that was Pakistan. As they say “you can keep cricket out of Pakistan but you cannot keep Pakistan out of cricket” so that isolation ended eventually but left Pakistan cricket lagging behind the rest of the world. PCB with whatever means it had, tried to bridge the gap. It started PSL on foreign shores, it helped revive cricket especially the financial side of things. Gave us stars who were marketable, then Babar Azam happened and Pakistan won the Champions Trophy in 2017 and also attained the 1st spot in ICC’s T20 ranking, and now when I am writing these lines Pakistan sits at the number two spot in ICC’s ODI rankings but still after all this the brand Pakistan is undervalued. Though, the recent profit-sharing formula proposed by ICC gives PCB the biggest share in ICC revenues after the Big Three countries but Pakistan’s value is more than what it is getting in the proposed formula. Though this idea of profit-sharing itself is not so good for the development of the game but it is what it is.

Pakistan has the tools and resources to become a financial powerhouse of the game; it has history, the game is popular in the nook and corner of the country, it has a good team with bankable and marketable stars. Pakistan should keep on marketing and developing them this will help its brand like PSL too and it also should look at ways through which it may increase the amount of cricket it is getting.

Now this brings me to the real question which this piece will try to answer and that is realizing Pakistan cricket’s financial potential. What Pakistan should do to increase the value of its cricketing economy?

The first order of the day is a standard one. Pakistan should look to invest in the game. The quality and competitiveness of domestic cricket should be improved. This will not only be achieved through better equipment, coaching staff, or player salaries, PCB should also invest in the infrastructure. The facilities that are imperative for the development of the game. There is a need to improve the game experience for the players but also for the spectators. The stadiums- new and old, should be designed in a way that the spectators enjoy themselves there. More international cricket can be very helpful in this regard.   

Pakistan is to host the Asia Cup this August but due to India’s political limitations, they are not willing to travel to Pakistan. PCB has contemplated options like boycotting the upcoming world cup in India to proposing a hybrid model where Indian matches are to be played outside of Pakistan. The second option has been shot down by the boards of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. What are Pakistan’s options now it is important to remember that we are the hosts of 2025’s ICC Champions Trophy as well.

The current conundrum demands from Pakistan, realpolitik not hyperbolic rhetoric. First thing first, Pakistan should travel to India for the world cup. We are strong contenders to lift the cup later this year, we should not tinker with our chances of world cup glory. Someone as great as Babar deserves every bit of opportunity to create a legacy of his own and winning a world cup will go a long way in doing that his cricketing legacy will surely help the game in Pakistan too. Secondly, though this is going to be a very unpopular suggestion Pakistan should offer India to play its games in Mohali or Chandigarh, these two destinations are closer to Pakistan and logistics are also workable.

I know doing this will not mean that India will travel to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025 but there is a need to keep our options open and keep our eyes on the greater and bigger picture. Once Pakistan would be an economic powerhouse of cricket only then we would be able to get feasible conditions. There could also be India pulling containment strategies on us and not traveling to Pakistan, which could be their way of doing it but still we must tread this path with rationality and minimal emotionality and most importantly understand that the “game” has changed.