During the BCCI’s annual captains and coaches conclave, skippers of a couple of prominent domestic teams had demanded that the remuneration of domestic cricketers should be at par with their counterparts in Australia and England. The wish can come true with a combination of change in BCCI’s revenue distribution model for players and, more importantly, State associations starting to offer annual retainer to cricketers.
When the BCCI decided to include the domestic cricketers under the revenue distribution umbrella a decade ago, they got a fillip in their earnings from the game. However, the match-fee seems to have stagnated, thus prompting the need for the State associations to start offering annual contracts.
A comparison
According to a Cricket Australia statement last year, for instance, the average State player receives annual retainer of A$99,000 (₹47.52 lakh, approx.) as annual retainer from his respective association. If a cricketer is involved in 10 Sheffield Shield matches (the Australian First Class competition), and six one-day games, he can earn an additional A$58,000 (₹28 lakh, approx.) on an average.
Compare that with Indian cricket and all that the domestic cricketers earn is the match-fee from the BCCI. Over the last 10 years, the average match-fee a player earns, according to the BCCI formula, is around ₹30,000 per match-day. It means that a player, who features in eight Ranji Trophy league matches, six one-dayers and five T20 games, takes home about ₹13 lakh per year.
If this has to increase, the first step that needs to be taken is for the State associations to start offering annual contracts, similar to the central contract offered by the BCCI. Every association that fields a team in the Ranji Trophy receives around ₹25 crore as annual subvention from the BCCI. It will not cost the associations a great deal to offer an average annual retainer of at least ₹10 lakh for 20 cricketers.
Match-fees calculation
Having said that, it’s high time the BCCI revises the structure of match-fee as well. At the moment, the BCCI claims that it divides 26 per cent of its annual revenue to cricketers — 13% among internationals, 10.4% to domestic and 2.6% combined to junior and women cricketers.
However, the fact is while calculating the revenue, the BCCI does not include income from the International Cricket Council’s central pool and the Indian Premier League revenue. This effectively means the only major source of revenue that is distributed to cricketers is the surplus from broadcast rights generated for international cricket in India after deducting the production costs.
Moreover, 70% of this surplus is divided equally amongst the State associations, while the remaining 30% is passed on to the players. This means that the domestic cricketers end up earning a decent sum only when India plays more international cricket at home.
In 2014-15, for instance, since India hardly played a series at home, the BCCI utilised money from its general fund to ensure domestic players don’t suffer financially.
India head coach Anil Kumble is understood to have highlighted the need to widen the players’ revenue base so that the key stakeholders of the game can be rewarded better.
