Cricket Business: Cricket West Indies announce 50% salary cuts for its staff, coaches

Cricket West Indies has announced a temporary 50% reduction in salaries and funding across the region from July 1.

CWI has kept players, staff, umpires and coaches on full pay since the outbreak began, but the lack of any international matches recently and in the near future means the governing body “is facing a significant loss of income.”

The financial cuts were taken in consultation with all stakeholders, CWI said in a statement.

The body adds it “hopes that these temporary measures will only be in place for not more than three to six months.” 

Cricket West Indies (CWI) chief Ricky Skerritt himself admitted couple of weeks back that the COVID-19 pandemic has put the region’s already ailing cricket body into “Intensive Care Unit” and it will have to go for cost cutting measures to ride out the financial crisis.

 

New Zealand Cricket & Cricket Australia already had cut jobs and salaries 

 

Earlier New Zealand Cricket (NZC) and Cricket Australia (CA) had announced job and salary cuts with in their ecosystems to battle the financial crisis created by Covid19 pandemic.

Cricket West Indies in ‘ICU’

 

The financial position of the Cricket West-Indies (CWI) is deteriorating by the day. The CWI finances is classic case of spendings being more than what you earn. And when, what you earn further gets impacted by Covid19, the financial fort of CWI is surely set to crumble. With no broadcast rights deal in kitty as yet, the situation is getting alarming for CWI by the day.

Media Rights Deal with the Broadcaster – Biggest Worry

The CWI is worried that despite of being on road since the last 7 months for the right media rights (broadcast & digital) partner for the next cycle, all talks with the potentials suitors are still in air. The President of CWI Ricky Skerritt himself painted a challenging portrait of the governing body’s finances in midst of pending broadcast deal which like any other sporting federation is the biggest source of revenue for CWI.

“The broadcast rights money expired in December last year and we still do not have completed negotiations with most countries …,” he said. “One, you should really enter the market about two years before the end of the [deal] to start negotiating and trying to cajole and to convince the broadcasters to do business with you. We didn’t go to the market till around the same time I became president last year  so we’ve not had enough time in the market and to make it worse, the market has become very, very uncertain. So revenues which under normal circumstances we would have already begun collecting from broadcast rights, we have not done as yet.” said Skerritt couple of weeks back. 

Another big worry for CWI is the International Cricket Council’s revenues shares to the member boards. In case, T20 World Cup does not happen – the board is set to lose their revenue shares and that will be nothing less than disaster for CWI. As per the understanding CWI gets 7.2% of the total surplus of the ICC revenue shares. The next installment in September for the same is currently under threat because of the uncertainty surrounding the T20 World Cup.

 

“Revenues continue to decline, expenses are fixed and even when you try to reduce some of the administrative or operational costs, you still have payrolls that exceed US$1.5 million dollars per month to cover players, etc and other fixed costs that just won’t go away.”, added Skerritt. 

Without any doubt, the situation is alarming for CWI and uncertainty surrounding T20 World Cup will further make future unpredictable and unsustainable for them.

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