ONLINE POLL: Loss increases Yorkshire’s deficit

The club are blaming the deficit on bad weather and poor crowds for international games at Headingley last summer.

Only 36,000 people watched the Test match against New Zealand – some 20,000 short of the club’s target figure.

And Headingley suffered a hat-trick of one-day international washouts in the space of five years when the showpiece match against Australia was abandoned.

Yorkshire’s deficit would be near-double but for a one-off interest rebate of £563,000 from HSBC, listed as an exceptional item in the club’s annual report and accounts, published today.

Yorkshire’s net debt increased during the year from £22.2m to £24m, most of which is underwritten by club chairman Colin Graves, the multi-millionaire founder of the Costcutter supermarket chain.

Yorkshire’s income fell by £1m to £6.8m, while commercial income dropped by £150,000 to £1.6m.

International revenue decreased by £900,000 to £2.2m – and it is revenue generated from hosting international cricket that remains imperative to the club’s financial prosperity.

Yorkshire’s director of finance Charles Hartwell said: “The 
financial figures are not what we’d hoped for and obviously it’s 
disappointing to make a loss.

“The Test match was the thing that hit us the hardest.

“Day one was completely washed out, so we got no walk-up on the day, while the fact that the match spilled over into a fifth day, when only about 500 turned up after England controversially failed to enforce the follow-on, cost us around £50,000 in terms of stewarding, police, cleaning and catering.

“Attendances weren’t what we’d expected on days three and four either, but if you’ve got a Test match against New Zealand in May, it’s not an easy sell, particularly when it’s an Ashes summer.”

Yorkshire did not bid for an Ashes Test last year – nor have they done so for next year – as it could cost up to £2m to stage.

They considered that too heinous a risk given their financial position, particularly after their calamitous experience in 2010, when they lost around £1m staging the neutral Pakistan-Australia Test, when the expected influx of Asian spectators was barely a trickle.

Yorkshire have also accepted culpability for prohibitive ticket prices for the New Zealand Test which, as Hartwell intimates, was never going to capture the public imagination.

The cheapest adult seat for the first three days of the match was £40, while less than 10 per cent of Yorkshire’s members turned out to watch.

Yorkshire are forecasting another financial loss for 2014 – albeit a smaller one – and yet there are grounds for optimism.

This year’s Test match visitors, Sri Lanka, are theoretically more attractive opposition than the Kiwis, while a late-June fixture should be more favourable weather-wise.

Yorkshire have been more proactive and realistic in terms of ticket prices and have moved to address problems in the notoriously rowdy West Stand (now renamed the White Rose Stand), which is to be segregated so that high-jinks are better controlled and contained.

However, the bottom line remains as it always has: Yorkshire need more people to watch international matches at Headingley to prove they can stage England fixtures in an increasingly competitive market beyond 2019, when their international staging agreement expires with the England and Wales Cricket Board.

As Graves reiterates in the club’s annual report: “For the club to prosper and grow it is vital that we all continue to support international cricket at Headingley.

“Internationals are guaranteed every year until 2019, but we cannot afford to be complacent.

“For Headingley to flourish and retain its international status, in what is becoming a very competitive market, we have to demonstrate to the ECB that we are capable of staging matches of this magnitude.

“We need the support of the whole of the Yorkshire cricket community for international cricket to prosper in the county, and ultimately the public to support us by buying tickets.”

As well as working to improve the overall customer experience, which has been very much the mantra of chief executive Mark Arthur, who arrived at the club last May, Yorkshire are redoubling efforts to secure a naming rights partner for the Headingley venue.

This is an increasingly important source of income in modern sport, with Lancashire County Cricket Club, for example, thought to have benefited handsomely from their tie-up with Emirates.

“We’re working hard to find a naming rights partner,” said Hartwell, who will be leaving Yorkshire in April to take up a new position with a law firm in Harrogate.

“If a deal comes off, allied to the fact that we’ve signed a world-class player in Aaron Finch for the Twenty20, and with the better scheduling of county fixtures generally, it could be of significant benefit to the club.”

Yorkshire’s accounts will be formally presented to members at the club’s AGM on March 29.

The meeting will also rubber-stamp the appointment as an honorary life member of Sachin Tendulkar, the club’s first overseas player, in 1992.

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