The T20 Global League South Africa launched at the Wanderers on Wednesday evening may not adhere to Cricket South Africa’s transformation guidelines‚ but CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat said there could be problems for franchises that do not transform.
With South African cricket at provincial and franchise level having transformation targets to be adhered to‚ there was a feeling the Global League tournament could be exempt from those targets.
Despite the galaxy nature of the tournament with the array of international stars set to join the tournament‚ Lorgat said CSA will evaluate a franchise’s status in the event of a team not being transformative.
“The absence of targets doesn’t mean it’s not something we’re not going to impress upon the owners to support us with.” he said.
“We’ve got a seven-year evaluation where we’ll look at the team owners and look at who is performing‚ and who isn’t alongside a guideline of key performance areas to evaluate. If there is a failure among the owners to transform‚ we will make that point.
“There is a provision to have a really difficult discussion with the owners in terms of the transformation part. Some of the obligations we are imposing on the franchise owners is that they reinvest into our hubs programmes.
“They have to adopt one of the hubs but we have a very balanced model when it comes to generating revenue that will help to grow and sustain the game in South Africa.”
Lorgat said CSA were in tentatively discussions with SuperSport in terms of the pay-channel being the host broadcaster‚ but said the possibility of the tournament being available on free-to-air television is hanging in the balance.
One of the backbones of the success of the Indian Premier League and Australia’s Big Bash League have been their free-to-air availability.
“We haven’t made those decisions yet but we have to admit that this will be a commercial venture and we will look to see who bids the price that we need to achieve in order to make the model work‚” Lorgat said.
“We want to use the funds that we generate from the tournament to develop the game and all our internationals and other fixtures will be on free-to-air. This one will depend on how we settle on the negotiations.
“We’re talking to SuperSport but those are sensitive discussions we’re still having at the moment.”
- TMG Digital/TMG Sport
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