by sussexpob » Thu Sep 28, 2023 3:52 pm
It would all make sense if the Hundred had been worth the damage, but it really seems it hasnt. The blast, moved to the fringes of the season in May evenings where it has been noted that exam periods/school still being on/no summer holidays negatively impacts the sales, especially for under - 16s who make up 21% of the Hundred ticket sales to a mere couple of percent of Blast games, sold 800,000 tickets, down from a peak of just under 1,000,000 before the Hundred strode into town - the Hundred, womans' and mens combined, sold 580,000. The blast has approximately double the games days, but if you consider ticket sales for the Hundred are for both womans and mens compeitions, the number of games to sales is actually very similar... so its not hard to see that even now, the Blast is more popular, even given is relative massive disadvantages.
Also, when comparing average gates for the Blasts top 8 stadium, its no comparision taking like for like. Blast games at the same Hundred venues sold more in 2019 than the Hundred has managed.
Anyone with half a brain would think by now that the extra investment, flexibility for foreign talent, getting English internationals free to play, free to air exposure, etc etc given to the Blast would have produced better results than the concept of the Hundred, and probably by some margin.
Instead, we seem to be getting a slow drifting where the two will meet somewhere in the middle, and probably represent two of the same competition of equalish popularity. And at some stage the sheer glut of T20 cricket will take its toll. Rather than create a super competition, we seem to have got two devalued parallel ones, neither of which seems to represent a zenith to English crickets future.
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