Novelty factor of Twenty20 game starting to wear thin

ONE of the most striking aspects of this year’s Twenty20 tournament has been the disappointing crowd figures across the country.

Although Yorkshire welcomed 10,350 spectators to Headingley for Friday’s Roses match against Lancashire, that was still some way short of what they had hoped for and largely indicative of the prevailing trend.

It will be some time before this year’s Twenty20 gate numbers have been properly collated; suffice to say that appetite for the competition would appear to be waning.

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Yorkshire had hoped for a crowd of around 12,000-plus for their showpiece county match of the summer, and although their five-figure gate was still perfectly respectable, it meant around 5,000 seats remained unfilled.

Charles Hartwell, Yorkshire’s finance director, admits that people are voting with their feet.

However, he insists that Twenty20 remains extremely profitable and eminently necessary for counties to thrive.

“Maybe the novelty factor is starting to wear off a bit,” said Hartwell, who estimated Friday’s match was worth around £100,000 to Yorkshire, minus costs.

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“Maybe the competition needs a little bit more oomph next year, although how you would do that is another matter.

“Overall, though, Twenty20 still brings in very decent crowds and adds another dimension to the sport.

“It’s got fours, sixes and lots of razzmatazz, and its importance to the counties cannot be overstated.”

There have been two clear reasons why this year’s attendances have been nothing to write home about.

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First, the weather has been wretched, with Britain having experienced the wettest April-June period since 1931.

Second, the clash with a major football tournament has been a problem, something which Twenty20 has to combat every two years.

“I think the main problem has been the weather,” added Hartwell.

“It’s been an absolutely dismal year weather-wise and we’ve lost more than a third of our County Championship programme, for example.

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“This year, we had about 3,300 spectators for our opening Twenty20 home game against Durham, which was a reasonable attendance.

“However, on a lovely sunny day, we might have attracted over double that amount and a crowd in the region of 7,000.”

Although the elements have done their best to scupper the season, Yorkshire have made light of their impact in Twenty20.

The club have won five of their opening seven games to storm to the top of the North Group and to within touching distance of the quarter-finals.

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Yorkshire will probably reach the last eight if they win just one of their remaining three group fixtures.

They return to action on Thursday with a floodlit match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge (7pm start), play a floodlit game against Lancashire the following day (7pm start) and host Derbyshire at Headingley on Sunday (2.40pm start).