Cricket SA CEO Pholetsi Moseki says the organisation is desperate for their latest attempt at a money-spinning T20 League to be a roaring success to avoid a bleak future for cricket in the country and potentially major job losses for players and officials.
CSA run at a loss of about R200m annually and are in serious need of a big shot in the arm, sooner rather than later. A world-class T20 League has been identified as the best chance for CSA to pull itself out of this dark place.
However, CSA have already failed twice at launching a lucrative T20 competition as the T20 Global League couldn’t get off the ground in 2017, while the Mzansi Super League (MSL) held in 2018 and 2019 ran at a loss.
Moseki and his leadership have gambled big to make the new T20 League work, such as forgoing the January window when the Proteas were to play an ODI series in Australia, to ensure the league enjoys undivided attention in SA.
“We need to give our league the best chance because Cricket SA needs this to succeed,” Moseki told TimesLIVE Premium.
“If the league doesn’t succeed it will mean cricket in SA will have to totally restructure. We will have to see if we can afford to have 15 affiliates. Can we afford to have over 200 professional players?
“For us to not get to a ‘do this, do that’ scenario of having to say, ‘we can’t afford 15 affiliates, maybe the organisation can only afford 10 affiliates and we can’t afford 200 players, we can afford to have 150 professional players’ we need the league to work.
“We are trying to avoid having to make that call, hence we want to give the league the best chance of success so it can help us diversify our revenue, like the IPL (Indian Premier League) has done for India.”
Moseki said CSA has learnt from its blunders that saw the Global League and MSL fail to rescue the organisation from its troubles.
“There were a number of things we learnt from the two previous T20 competitions as to why they failed. Those were taken into account for the new league, hence we are starting on a better footing compared to those leagues.”
The original timeline CSA had for the competition to start providing a boost to their coffers was initially five years. However, having SuperSport as a stakeholder in the competition, and with all six franchises bought by individuals or companies that own teams in the IPL, has positively changed that prognosis.
“When we started working on it, we expected it to start making money for us after five years,” Moseki said.
“We are buying time because we know ultimately we will have a situation where we are going to demand that the league makes a contribution.
“But we were realistic about it and we are giving ourselves five years for it to change the game for us. But obviously the numbers changed drastically because of the partners that came on board.
“So we expect to break even far earlier than expected. Things changed drastically with those teams that bought franchises — I expect we are going to be in the black and it will contribute to our numbers earlier than expected,” he said.
“To be honest, I think the league will benefit cricket in SA when my tenure at CSA has ended. It took the IPL 10 years before it started pumping and making serious money for the BCCI.
“I will be a very happy man when I’m watching cricket 10 years from now and see the league contributing to CSA far better than bilateral cricket because that will ensure that there’s sustainability.
“If we don’t do that, five years from now we will be facing a cliffhanger as cricket in SA, not just CSA.”
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