In March 2014, a 39 page report into the administration and delivery of Domestic Cricket was circulated to NZC's six Major Associations for discussion.
"The goal is to change Domestic Cricket for the better and give everyone involved better outcomes than they have now," said GM Domestic Cricket David Cooper.
The three main points for discussion in the paper are essentially:
- Commercial – the ability of the Domestic Competitions to have better revenue outcomes by positioning the game differently to what we now do (this is where Third Party/Private Investment falls as an option for a new revenue stream). This is in part an outcome of point 3
- High Performance – ensuring that the Domestic Competitions develop players that the NZC High Performance programme can more easily/quickly turn into successful BLACKCAPS. This probably requires more resource than is available now which would be generated from point 1
- Entertainment – we have in the Domestic Competitions product suite the Twenty20 competition that must be better utilised and must be considered entertainment. Success with this will assist point 1 which will in turn assist point 2. Point 2, better players, will assist both point 1 and point 3
"These three pillars are very much interlinked. This is more about sports marketing than sports administration. That is, we want to make the product, event and the experience for the fans more relevant across all forms of the game."
"The report determines that Twenty20 should not be separated out as a format, as Four-day and One-day cricket are critical elements in the movement of players to international ranks and that focus may get lost if separate Twenty20 teams happened," said David Cooper.
From here, the next steps are gathering feedback from Major Associations over the next six weeks. These recommendations aren't locked in but do come from a significant amount of work, knowledge and understanding of Domestic Cricket involving a lot of people over at least the past four years.
NB the 39 page document is a set of recommendations prepared by NZC GM Domestic Cricket David Cooper, along with a steering committee (NZ Cricket Player's Association CEO Heath Mills, Auckland Cricket CEO Mark Cameron and Canterbury Cricket CEO Lee Germon, with an NZC Board sub-committee of Greg Barclay and Stuart Heal.
