ICC rejects PCB concerns before passing new financial model

The International Cricket Council (ICC) in its annual meeting held in Durban, South Africa has approved the new ICC Financial and Distribution Model 2024-27 despite Pakistan Cricket Board’s concerns.

According to a PCB statement, the new ICC financial and distribution model envisages the largest-ever investment to go into global cricket and provides a huge opportunity for the game to grow further.

In determining the distribution share to members, the model considers on and off-field performance including cricket rankings, performance at ICC events, and commercial contribution to the ICC Events.

PCB, in accordance with it’s constitutional right, has over the past few weeks and at the ICC Meetings, consistently sought additional information to better understand the rationale behind allocation of weightages to each of the criteria and the calculation of the distributions.

The PCB felt in the absence of all relevant information, data and formulae, such a significant decision should not be taken in haste.

The PCB, therefore, proposed that this item may be deferred to the next ICC meeting.

Ultimately, the majority of members did not find it feasible to defer this item and voted in favour of passing the Model, while the PCB recorded its dissent as a matter principle.

Consequently, due to the Pakistan cricket team’s performance in men’s ICC events and in bilateral cricket, the PCB’s own huge fan-base, which leads to significant commercial value, the PCB was ranked amongst the top-four nations in this Model.

As such, the PCB will receive more than two times the revenue when compared to the last cycle.

This increased share of revenue will mean that a far greater investment can be made in developing cricketing skills and will be beneficial in taking Pakistan Cricket to new heights. This was a welcome news for the Pakistani fans and our great nation.

Under new ICC model, all Full members are due to receive considerably more income in this rights cycle than in the last, a result of the increased bounty for the ICC in this cycle. Part of that was down to how the ICC broke down and sold its broadcast rights; where the ICC historically sold broadcast rights to all its events as one property to one broadcaster globally, this time it broke up its rights across different territories, in four and eight-year packages as well as into linear TV rights or for digital streaming (or both).

As a result, where the ICC received approximately USD$2.1 billion for eight years in the 2015-23 cycle, they will receive upwards of USD$3 billion for four years from the India market alone this time. That means that a number of boards could end up receiving more than double what they did in the previous cycle.

Asia Cup schedule

A number of fruitful meetings were held by Mr Zaka Ashraf, Chair of the PCB’s Management Committee, with fellow cricket board officials on the sidelines of the ICC meetings where collaborations and mutually beneficial programs to further cricket development and growth were discussed.

On Saturday, 15 July, a meeting was held between the PCB and ACC officials in respect of finalising the schedule of the Asia Cup 2023, logistical and organisational arrangements and marketing campaigns.

The finalised schedule is likely to be announced during this week. With the opening match scheduled to kick off in Pakistan, the PCB, as the event host, looks forward to welcoming cricket fans from across the world to experience Pakistan’s renowned hospitality.