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Abstract
World Series Cricket (WSC), a breakaway competition established by the Australian media proprietor Kerry Packer that operated between 1977 and 1979, was arguably the biggest shock to occur in world cricket. While there is some commentary about the financial cost of WSC, there has been little empirical analysis on the monetary effects of WSC on State Cricket Associations affiliated to the Australian Cricket Board (ACB). Analysis of state cricket association financial reports between 1974 and 1982 shows the substantial negative financial impact of WSC, and a relatively quick recovery through increased post-WSC distributions from the ACB. Non-financial information highlights the initial negative, then positive, feelings between the ACB and WSC.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The ACB is currently known as Cricket Australia. For simplicity and the purposes of historical authenticity, the term ACB is used.
2 Stefan Szymanski and Tim Wigmore, Crickonomics: The Anatomy of Modern Cricket (London: Bloomsbury Sport, 2022), 17.
3 Richard Cashman, ‘The Packer Cricket War’, in The Cambridge Companion to Cricket, ed. Anthony Bateman and Jeffrey Hill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 100.
4 See, for example, Damion Sturm, ‘From Idyllic Past-Time to Spectacle of Accelerated Intensity: Televisual Technologies in Contemporary Cricket’, Sport in Society 24, no. 8 (2021): 1305–21; Daniel Brettig, Bradman & Packer: The Deal That Changed Cricket (Melbourne: Slattery Media Group, 2019); Steve Greenfield, ‘New Competitions and Contracts: Sports Entrepreneurs and Litigation from a Historical Perspective’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 35, nos 7–8 (2019): 727–44; Michael Ward, ‘ABC Television and the Development of Televised Cricket’, Sporting Traditions 35, no. 1 (2018): 79–96; Bernard Whimpress, ‘On Cricket’, Sporting Traditions 34, no. 1 (2017): 51–62.
5 Geoff Dickson, Trevor Arnold, and Laurence Chalip, ‘League Expansion and Interorganisational Power’, Sport Management Review 8, no. 2 (2005): 145–65.
6 Ian Henry and Ping Chao Lee, ‘Governance and Ethics in Sport’, in The Business of Sport Management, ed. John Beech and Simon Chadwick (Essex: Pearson Education, 2004), 25–41.
7 Keith G. Provan, ‘The Federation as an Interorganizational Linkage Network’, Academy of Management Review 8, no. 1 (1983): 79.
8 David Shilbury, ‘Competition: The Heart and Soul of Sport Management’, Journal of Sport Management 26, no. 1 (2012): 1–10.
9 Daniel Plumley, Rob Wilson, Robbie Millar, and Simon Shibli, ‘Howzat? The Financial Health of English Cricket: Not Out, Yet’, International Journal of Financial Studies 7, no. 1 (2019): 1–17; Robbie Millar, Dan Plumley, Rob Wilson, and Geoff Dickson, ‘Federated Networks in England and Australia Cricket: A Model of Economic Dependency and Financial Insecurity’, Sport, Business and Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-09-2021-0100.
10 Daniel A. Rascher, Joel G. Maxcy, and Andy Schwarz, ‘The Unique Economic Aspects of Sports’, Journal of Global Sport Management 6, no. 1 (2022): 111–38.
11 John C. Bradbury, ‘Monopsony and Competition: The Impact of Rival Leagues on Player Salaries During the Early Days of Baseball’, Explorations in Economic History 65 (2017): 55–67; Rodney Fort, “Major League Baseball Is Just Like McDonald’s? Lessons from Unrecognized Rival Leagues’, in The Oxford Handbook of Sports Economics, Vol. 2: Economics Through Sports, ed. Stephen Shmanske and Leo Kahane (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 227–46; Huang-Yeo Hong and Florence R Sullivan, ‘Towards an Idea-Centered, Principle-Base Design to Support Learning as Knowledge Creation’, Educational Technology Research and Development 57, no. 5 (2010): 613–27; XiaoGang Che and Brad R. Humphreys, ‘Competition Between Sports Leagues: Theory and Evidence on Rival League Formation in North America’, Review of Industrial Organization 46, no. 2 (2015): 127–43; Sara L. McGaughey and Peter W. Liesch, ‘The Global Sports-Media Nexus: Reflections on the “Super League Saga” in Australia’, Journal of Management Studies 39, no. 3 (2002): 383–416; Lloyd Freeburn, ‘A Breakaway League in Professional Cycling: Issues for the Governance and Organisation of the Sport’, International Sports Law Journal 13, nos 3–4 (2013): 193–210; Anthony Macedo, Marta Ferreira, and Paulo Reis Mourão, ‘A Literature Review on the European Super League of Football – Tracing the Discussion of a Utopia?’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 14, no. 3 (2022): 563–79.
12 Szymanski and Wigmore, Crickonomics, 18–20.
13 Thomas W. Lee, Terence R. Mitchell, Lowell Wise, and Steven Fireman, ‘An Unfolding Model of Voluntary Employee Turnover’, Academy of Management Journal 39, no. 1 (1996): 5–36; Gina Cattani, Simone Ferriani, and Andrea Lanza, ‘Deconstructing the Outsider Puzzle: The Legitimation Journey of Novelty’, Organization Science 28, no. 6 (2017): 965–92.
14 Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam, A Theory of Fields (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 12.
15 Aju J. Fenn, ‘Competing Leagues, Mergers, and Expansions’, in The Oxford Handbook of Sports Economics, Vol. 2, ed. Shmanske and Kahane, 1–12; Ping Chao Lee, ‘Political Clientelism and Professional Baseball in Taiwan: The Merger Between the Two Leagues in 2003’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport 47, no. 4 (2012): 475–91.
16 David Utting, ‘Multicultural Cricket? National Identity and the Australian Cricket Board’s Annual Report’, Journal of Australian Studies 39, no. 3 (2015): 362–80.
17 Wray Vamplew, Pay Up and Play the Game: Professional Sport in Britain 1875–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Richard Cashman, ‘Symbols of Unity: Anglo‐Australian Cricketers, 1877–1900’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 7, no. 1 (1990): 97–110; Peter A. Horton, ‘“Padang or Paddock”: A Comparative View of Colonial Sport in Two Imperial Territories’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 14, no. 1 (1997): 1–20; Warwick Frost, ‘Heritage, Nationalism, Identity: The 1861-62 England Cricket Tour of Australia’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 19, no. 4 (2002): 55–69.
18 Richard Cashman, Paradise of Sport: A History of Australian Sport, Revised ed. (Sydney: Walla Walla Press, 2010), 19.
19 The Melbourne Cricket Club did not allow women to become members until 1983.
20 See Szymanski and Wigmore, Crickonomics, 112–5.
21 Malcolm Abbott, ‘A Long-Term View of Australian Cricket Payments’, Sport in History 34, no. 1 (2014): 113–33.
22 On January 1, 1901, the colonies were federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia.
23 Jack Pollard, Australian Cricket: The Game and the Players (Sydney: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985).
24 The number of delegates provided by Queensland and Western Australian representation increased to two each by 1974.
25 Pollard, Australian Cricket, 67–73.
26 April L. Wright and Raymond F. Zammuto, ‘Creating Opportunities for Institutional Entrepreneurship: The Colonel and the Cup in English County Cricket’, Journal of Business Venturing 28, no. 1 (2013): 51–68.
27 Megan Stronach and Daryl Adair, ‘“Brave New World” or “Sticky Wicket”? Women, Management and Organizational Power in Cricket Australia’, Sport in Society 12, no. 7 (2009): 910–32.
28 Wright and Zammuto, ‘Creating Opportunities’. See also Vamplew, Pay Up and Play the Game.
29 Richard Allen, ‘Off-Field Team Plays a Vital Hand’, Australian Financial Review, https://www.afr.com/companies/off-field-team-plays-a-vital-hand-19900406-kam7o (accessed May 22, 2021).
30 Pollard, Australian Cricket.
31 For example, the SACA, Annual Year Book (1975/76) noted that ‘Grants to District Clubs’ amounted to $20,500, while the WACA, Annual Report (1975/76) reported that ‘Grants to District Clubs’ were $15,000.
32 See SACA, Annual Year Book (1966/67), 28.
33 VCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 21.
34 Data obtained from SACA, Annual Year Book (1977/78), VCA, Annual Report (1977/78), and QCA, Annual Report (1977/78).
35 See Ward, ‘ABC Television and the Development of Televised Cricket’.
36 Gideon Haigh, The Summer Game: Australian Test Cricket 1949–71 (Melbourne: Text, 1997), 49.
37 Frazer Andrewes, ‘“They Play in Your Home”: Cricket, Media and Modernity in Pre‐War Australia’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 17, nos. 2–3 (2000): 93–110.
38 Bob Stewart, ‘Radio’s Changing Relationship with Australian Cricket: 1932-1950’, Sporting Traditions 19, no. 1 (2002): 49–64; Bob Stewart, ‘Seeing Is Believing: Television and the Transformation of Australian Cricket 1956-1975’, Sporting Traditions 22, no. 1 (2005): 39–56.
39 Ward, ‘ABC Television and the Development of Televised Cricket’, 86.
40 Ibid., 90.
41 Data obtained from SACA, Annual Year Book (1977/78), and VCA, QCA and NSWCA, Annual Reports (1977/78).
42 Russell Jackson, ‘The Joy of Six – the Benson and Hedges World Series Cup’, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/nov/25/the-joy-of-six-the-benson-and-hedges-world-series-cup (accessed May 22, 2022).
43 Abbott, ‘A Long-Term View of Australian Cricket Payments’.
44 In 1977/78 the sponsorship revenue for the SACA was $37,500, NSWCA $23,371, and QCA $23,746.
45 Gideon Haigh, The Cricket War: The Inside Story of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993), 308. See also Abbott, ‘A Long-Term View of Australian Cricket Payments’.
46 VCA, Annual Report (1978/79), 17.
47 See, for example, Eric Beecher, The Cricket Revolution (Melbourne: Newspress, 1978); Henry Blofeld, The Packer Affair (London: Collins, 1978); Haigh, The Cricket War; Peter McFarline, A Game Divided (Melbourne: Hutchinson, 1977); Alan Lee, A Pitch in Both Camps: England and World Series Cricket in Australia 1978-79 (London: Stanley Paul, 1979); Austin Robertson, Cricket Outlaws: Inside Kerry Packer’s World Series Revolution (Sydney: Macmillan, 2017).
48 Freeburn, ‘A Breakaway League in Professional Cycling’.
49 Beecher, The Cricket Revolution, 28; Cashman, ‘The Packer Cricket War’, 103.
50 Haigh, The Cricket War.
51 Greenfield, ‘New Competitions and Contracts’, 727–44.
52 Cashman, ‘The Packer Cricket War’.
53 See Lionel Frost, Margaret Lightbody, Amanda Carter, and Abdel K. Halabi, ‘A Cricket Ground or a Football Stadium: The Business of Ground-Sharing at the Adelaide Oval Before 1973’, Business History 58 (2016): 1164–82.
54 Cashman, ‘The Packer Cricket War’, 106.
55 VCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 19.
56 Robertson, ‘Cricket Outlaws’.
57 The actual attendance was estimated at more than 50,000, as the gates were thrown open when capacity was reached, with thousands queuing outside. See Cashman, ‘The Packer Cricket War’, 108.
58 Cashman, ‘The Packer Cricket War’, 107.
59 Haigh, The Cricket War; Joyce Greig and Mark Greig, Tony Greig: Love, War and Cricket (Sydney: Macmillian Australia, 2013).
60 Haigh, The Cricket War, 160.
61 Braham Dabscheck, ‘The Professional Cricketers Association’, Sporting Traditions 8, no. 1 (1991): 2–27.
62 VCA, Annual Report (1979/80), 19.
63 Tasmania is not included in this study. While the TCC was affiliated to the ACB, it did not host any international cricket during the period, and played a reduced roster of Shield cricket. ACB distributions were negligible until 1982 when the ACB granted Tasmania full membership to the state cricket competitions (For details, see Ric Finlay, ‘Cricket’, Companion to Tasmanian History (2005), https://www.utas.edu.au/tasmanian-companion/biogs/E000238b.htm (accessed February 2, 2022).
64 See, for example, Vivien Beattie, Bill McInnes and Stephanie Fearnley, ‘A Methodology for Analysing and Evaluating Narratives in Annual Reports: A Comprehensive Descriptive Profile and Metrics for Disclosure Quality Attributes’, Accounting Forum 28, no. 3 (2004): 205–36; Helen Irvine and Michelle Fortune, ‘The First 25 Years of the Queensland Rugby Football League: Claims to Legitimacy in Annual Reports’, Accounting History 21, no. 1 (2016): 48–74; Abdel K. Halabi, ‘Social Responsibility by Australian Football Clubs in the 1890s’, Journal of Management History 25, no. 3 (2019): 384–400; Josephine Maltby, ‘Hadfields Ltd: Its Annual General Meetings 1903-1939 and Their Relevance for Contemporary Corporate Social Reporting’, British Accounting Review 36, no. 4 (2004): 415–39.
65 Data for this table was obtained from NSWCA, Annual Report (1974/75–1981/82); QCA Annual Reports (1974/75–1981/82); SACA, Year Books (1974/75–1981/82); VCA, Annual Reports (1974/75–1981/82); WACA, Annual Reports (1974/75–1981/82).
66 QCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 4.
67 VCA, Annual Report (1978/79), 17.
68 QCA, Annual Report (1978/79), 4.
69 Cashman, ‘The Packer Cricket War’, 108.
70 In 1977 the loss was $21,186; in 1978 it was $57,669 (NSWCA, Annual Reports).
71 QCA, Annual Reports (1977/78, 1978/79).
72 VCA, Annual Reports (1977/78, 1978/79).
73 WACA, Annual Reports (1977/78, 1978/79).
74 WACA, Annual Report (1977/78), 4.
75 Ibid., 16.
76 SACA, Year Book (1977/78), 42.
77 WACA, Annual Report (1978/79), 14.
78 The increases in the revenues were 87% (SACA), 250% (NSWCA), 115% (VCA), 210% (QCA), and 84% (WACA).
79 NSWCA, Annual Reports (1979/80, 1981/82).
80 QCA, Annual Reports (1979/80, 1981/82).
81 VCA, Annual Reports (1978/79, 1980/81).
82 QCA, Annual Reports (1978/79, 1981/82).
83 WACA, Annual Reports (1979/80, 1980/81).
84 QCA, Annual Report (1981/82), 23.
85 See Dabscheck, ‘The Professional Cricketers Association’; Whimpress, ‘On Cricket’; Ward, ‘ABC Television and the Development of Televised Cricket’.
86 Keith A.P. Sandiford, ‘The Professionalization of Modern Cricket’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 2, no. 3 (1985): 270–89.
87 Elizabeth Green, Felix Ritchie Peter Bradley, and Glenn Parry, ‘Financial Resilience, Income Dependence and Organisational Survival in UK Charities’, Voluntas 32, no. 5 (2021): 992–1008.
88 Inigo Garcia-Rodriguez, M. Elena Romero, and Marcos Santamaria-Mariscal, ‘The Role of Boards in the Financial Vulnerability of Nonprofit Organizations’, Financial Accountability and Management 37, no. 3 (2021): 237–61.
89 Xintong Chen, ‘Nonprofit Financial Resilience: Recovery from Natural Disasters’, Voluntas 32, no. 5 (2021): 1010.
90 Plumley et al., ‘Howzat?’.
91 VCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 21.
92 See Lee et al., ‘An Unfolding Model of Voluntary Employee Turnover’.
93 VCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 20; SACA, Year Book (1978/79), 43; WACA, Annual Report (1977/78), 2.
94 See VCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 20, and NSWCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 90.
95 QCA, Annual Report (1977/78), 4.
96 Bradbury, ‘Monopsony and Competition’; Fort, ‘Major League Baseball Is Just Like McDonald’s?’, Hong and Sullivan, ‘Towards an Idea-Centered, Principle-Base Design’.
97 Fligstein and McAdam, ‘A Theory of Fields’.
98 QCA, Annual Report (1979/80), 4.
99 VCA, Annual Report (1979/80), 23.
100 Plumley et al., ‘Howzat?’.
101 Calculated using https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Abdel K. Halabi
Abdel K. Halabi is an Associate Professor in Accounting at the Federation Business School, Federation University Australia, and a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He has a special interest in accounting history as it relates to sporting organizations.
Geoff Dickson
Geoff Dickson is Director of the Centre for Sport and Social Impact at La Trobe University. His research interests include sport management, sport governance, and sport marketing.
Lionel Frost
Lionel Frost is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the Monash Business School, Monash University. He has published extensively on urban and economic history in Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region.