ICC to table McKinsey blueprint for $10bn cricket economy at Bali board meeting
ICC to table McKinsey blueprint for $10bn cricket economy at Bali board meeting
The International Cricket Council (ICC) will convene its quarterly meeting in Bali from November 13 to 15, with the future strategic direction of the global game squarely on the agenda.
At the heart of the gathering will be the long-awaited strategic review commissioned earlier this year from consultancy giant McKinsey & Company. The report, described as voluminous, is expected to be formally tabled during the Bali sessions.
"The ICC had commissioned McKinsey & Company earlier this year to conduct a strategic review on the future of the game worldwide and it is expected to be tabled at the Bali meeting," the original reporting noted. Whether the world body adopts the recommendations in their entirety will only be known at the meeting itself.
A blueprint for revenue growth
The Jay Shah-chaired governing body, keen on the global development of the game, is expected to accept a significant number of the recommendations — particularly those relating to revenue generation and the global economy of cricket.
A central thrust of the McKinsey document is to reduce the ICC's dependence on broadcast revenues. With only a limited pool of major broadcast players worldwide — and in India, virtually a single dominant company — the report is understood to have identified several fresh avenues for growth. These include greater corporate sponsorship, data monetisation and the rollout of a mobile gaming project.
"Mobile gaming and data monetisation are ambitious projects, and the ICC is believed to be keen on leveraging these resources," the analysis observed.
Crucially, the data in question should not be confused with traditional cricket statistics. Rather, it involves harnessing the vast reservoir of global data generated through the involvement of players and fans. Though seen as a long-term undertaking, unlocking this potential could open a significant new revenue stream for the world body — a model FIFA is known to have successfully exploited.
Tripling the cricket economy
The ICC's ambitions are starkly quantified. The game's annual revenue is currently estimated at $3.5–3.8 billion worldwide, and the governing body wants to raise it to $10 billion a year within the next decade. The body also intends to make women's cricket the most popular women's sport in the world.
To achieve this, there are plans to tap the potential of cricket in populous nations such as China, Indonesia, Brazil and the United States, while India will continue to be the single biggest contributor to the global economy of the sport.
Fixtures and the FTP vision
Discussions during a recent Futures Tours and Programmes (FTP) workshop in Dubai are understood to have aligned with this broader vision. As previously reported, the ICC will encourage more multilateral matches alongside an increased number of Twenty20 internationals, with the possibility of fewer bilateral ODIs — though recent ODI cricket has offered compelling contests.
Ultimately, however, the scheduling of bilateral and multilateral fixtures remains the prerogative of individual member boards rather than the ICC itself.