‘No Doomsday scenario at Yorkshire CCC’ insists Mark Arthur

That is the reassuring message from the club’s chief executive Mark Arthur as he pondered the potential financial impact on Yorkshire caused by the pandemic.

Arthur said that Yorkshire “would still survive” even if, in the worst-case scenario, not a single ball is bowled this summer.

He does not believe that any of the 18 first-class counties will go bust and predicted the cricketing family will pull together.

“This year was always going to be tight for us financially at Yorkshire and now, in all probability, depending on whether we get support from the England and Wales Cricket Board or the government, we will be in a loss-making situation,” said Arthur.

“But it will not be a Doomsday scenario for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

“Because of the tremendous year that we had last year (Yorkshire recently announced a record operating profit of £6.5m), and the way that we are set up as a business, then it would be a very poor year financially but not a Doomsday situation. We would still survive (even if no cricket was played).

“As counties, we are trying to come up with a solution that best preserves cricket as an entity and will all be helping to support each other.

“I don’t think counties will go to the wall.”

Arthur was speaking after a conference call of the county chief executives to discuss the ongoing crisis, with the ECB to consider the various ideas mooted over the next 48 hours.

Among possible options are extending the season into October (Arthur feels it is unlikely to start in April but says that Yorkshire are planning as if it will), cutting the County Championship programme and even suspending the 50-over Cup. There is consensus, however, that the T20 Blast must go ahead if possible: a huge source of revenue for the clubs.

The new 100-ball competition is another cash cow – Yorkshire stand to make around £2m from this year’s inaugural edition – and counties are taking a practical approach.

“We’re in a very difficult situation, and I think we will have to have a pragmatic solution to this year in order to safeguard the long-term future of cricket,” added Arthur.

“We don’t want counties or the game going bust, so we’re being very pragmatic and looking at what things, what game (format) actually makes the counties money, and that game is the T20 Blast.

“So that is the game which we feel can be particularly helpful at the present time because that obviously brings in much-needed revenue, whereas the County Championship doesn’t bring in revenue and is, effectively, a loss leader.

“For me, the Championship is the most important game because it nurtures the Test talent of the future, and, without that, what is the game all about? But, in the short-term, the T20 Blast could help an awful lot of cricket clubs financially.

“Our big T20 game is Yorkshire versus Lancashire on June 4. If we were to lose that, because there’s all the associated sponsorship stuff, there’s the hospitality, there’s the ticket revenue, there’s the impact that it has on inspiring future generations, and so on, it would clearly be a major blow.

“It was also interesting that Lancashire, when they were speaking (in the conference call), were saying that the one game they need to preserve this year is Lancashire versus Yorkshire in the T20 Blast.”

The main and most obvious difficulty is that no one knows what is going to happen from one hour to the next.

Arthur’s favoured option – assuming that present government advice stands – is to start the season behind closed doors, thereby ensuring that there is no disruption to the Championship, with Yorkshire scheduled to play six of their 14 four-day fixtures before the end of May.

“My preferred option, if we are all in isolation, would be to play County Championship cricket behind closed doors and stream the matches so that people could still watch them from home,” he said.

“But I don’t know whether we’re going to be allowed to do that, because we simply don’t know what it (the season) looks like at the moment.

“We’ll hopefully know more by the end of this week; the ECB have obviously got their stakeholders to talk to as well, and what they don’t want to do is to reschedule cricket to start in July, say, only to then find out that we’re not ready to play until August, or, on the other hand, to find out that we’re actually all ready to go at the beginning of June, and then we’d have had a wasted month.

“It’s a very complex scenario that they’re trying to plan for.”

Yorkshire are encouraging their staff to work from home if possible in line with government recommendations. Meanwhile, Scarborough Cricket Club has postponed its AGM next Monday and closed the North Marine Road ground/office to the public.