Having experienced somewhat of a breakout season in Australia, on the back of a new domestic League that far exceeded broadcast and crowd targets, the T20 star is seemingly rising. Perhaps not surprisingly, this has spurred furious debate about whether Twenty20 cricket is more appealing to a new generation of cricket lovers, at the expense of the more traditional one-day and Test (5-day) cricket.
Many people, myself included, believe Twenty20 is growing exponentially and will soon become a major force in the sporting markets of cricket playing nations. The question for international cricket is: can it sustain 3 different versions of the game? This question is as much about High Performance (insofar as whether players can be expected to play all three forms of the game over a sustained period time) as it is about whether the market can bear such a condensed and saturated calendar. It is almost certain that players cannot sustainably play all three versions of the game at the elite level and for this reason, cricket's administrators have a conundrum on their hands.
Whilst there are some international team sports that run perhaps two 'disciplines' (Soccer for example runs a Beach Soccer World Cup and Rugby has Rugby Sevens and Fifteens) there is no known precedent for a sport to manage three International disciplines. The ICC runs World Championships in two versions of the game - T20 and One Day cricket. Ironically (although it has tried and failed) it does not run a World Championship for what most people consider to be the most prestigious 'discipline' - Test Cricket.
There are, however, parallels in business - and Coca-Cola's disastrous launch of 'New Coke' in the mid 80's may provide some food for thought (excuse the pun) for cricket's administrators.
The New Coke debacle is etched in Business Management folklore as an example of how not to underestimate a consumer's emotional attachment to your product or brand. And to be very careful in drawing conclusions from 'market research'. A very useful and entertaining synopsis of the New Coke story can be found here. In a nutshell however, the story goes like this:
- Concerned by a loss of market share to rival product, Pepsi, Coca Cola Executives launched a market research drive in an attempt to find out why Pepsi was gaining in popularity at such a rapid rate - a problem that was exacerbated by the rapid rise of 'Diet Coke' which had the effect of splitting Coke's once significant market share between 'traditional' Coke and Diet Coke (you see where I am going here don't you).
- Internal research confirmed what Pepsi had been spruiking in their 'Pepsi Challenge' marketing campaign - that consumers preferred the sweeter taste of Pepsi. (Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink, details the fallacy of the Pepsi Challenge taste test and hypothesises that just because a consumer prefers a sip of the sweeter tasting Pepsi, it doesn't mean they prefer to drink an entire can of the sweeter drink over a less sweet alternative). i.e. lovers of T20 cricket may not necessarily like Test and/or One Day cricket - and vice versa.
- Their answer was New Coke - a sweeter derivation of 'traditional' Coke that was launched with great fanfare in April 1985 after Coca-Cola's own internal taste tests had shown it to be more popular than BOTH Pepsi and 'traditional' Coke. Production of the original formula ceased in the same month.
- The fallout was swift and immediate with Coke drinkers deriding 'New Coke' in a vociferous campaign that, just 3 months later, saw Coca Cola announce that production of the original formula would re-commence immediately.
So what are the parallels to Cricket? Well the question for cricket is how it deals with three 'brands' of international cricket without eroding it's market share and maintaining player welfare. How does it deal with T20, the 'New Coke' of cricket?
Evidence suggests that T20 is bringing new consumers to cricket - and therefore not diluting the market share of existing consumers as 'Diet Coke' did in the mid 80's Pepsi war. According to the Sunday Telegraph, research conducted at the first T20 international between Australia and India, showed that one third of the 59,659 people that attended the match, were attending their first cricket international.
If T20 is the 'New Coke' of cricket, then cricket administrators would do well to learn from the mistakes of Coca Cola and resist a temptation to 'cease or wind-back production' of the original formulae - Test and One Day Internationals. There is a very clear and emotional connection that cricket lovers have for the more traditional versions of the game. Failure to recognise the emotional connection to the game at this level, as Coca Cola did, would be catastrophic for the ICC. However, because T20 is bringing new followers to the game it therefore must be accommodated in an already crowded international season. Which presents a significant player welfare challenge for the ICC.
From a High Performance Perspective it is almost certain that the players cannot continue to play all three versions of the game at the elite level. So how does the ICC deal with the conundrum of a juggernaut brand that is bringing new followers to the game with the High Performance reality that the international calendar the new 'brand' creates is unsustainable? Walk away or scale back the 'traditional' versions of the game and risk a Coca-Cola-like disaster?
What's my solution? The establishment of an international T20 Tour - not unlike the IRB Sevens World Series. A travelling series of 3-week T20 tournaments comprising the 10 Test Playing nations held in, say, six countries to begin with: Rd1 in India, Rd 2 in Sri Lanka, Rd 3 in Pakistan, Rd 4 in England, Rd 5 in South Africa, Rd 6 in Australia. By default you would create an international product that satisfies the growing demand for T20 Cricket - but the nature of the series would require T20 specialist cricketers for the duration of a Calendar year (how each of the National Federations use this series as part of their Player pathway would be up to them). This would leave future international Tours for Test and One-Day Cricket.
The T20 Cricket World Series creates a potential cash-cow for the ICC that feeds a growing appetite for cricket amongst a new market segment whilst protecting an international Tours Program that is limited to Test and One Day Cricket - a model that is proven to be sustainable from a High Performance Perspective.
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