JOHANNESBURG: Cricket South Africa (CSA) announced Thursday the six selected teams and venues for the new T20 League this year. Earlier it was reported that the board had hired Nielsen Sport, the globally renowned market research firm to conduct an independent assessment over the cities in terms of certain parameters and advise the CSA on the same.
The selected venues are: Bidvest Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg, SuperSport Park in Centurion, Kingsmead in Durban, St. George’s Park in Port Elizabeth, PPC Newlands in Cape Town and Eurolux Boland Park in East London. All the provincial boards will be responsible for running the teams, which will be owned by CSA. This will be much on the lines of Australia’s Big Bash League.
“The key mandate given to all our members in applying to be a host venue was the primary goal of luring new and traditional fans, other sports fans and the wider general public to our stadia,” CSA CEO Thabang Moroe said.
“This process was, in fact, started some time ago when CSA embarked on a National Stadium Grading Process of all our first-class venues.
“The buzz phrase for the independent assessment was the ‘Fan Journey’ which starts with the fans’ arrival at the stadium and includes the full package of transport options both to and from the stadium and traffic management, ease of access, safety and security arrangements, catering, and interaction activities and opportunities specific to the fan experience.
“From our observations of other T20 Leagues around the world and competitions in other sporting codes it has become clear that the fan experience is all important.
“Our research has shown us that the match day experience is enhanced by fans ‘leaving their seats’, either to engage with other fans in different areas of the stadium, to partake in various sponsor and event activations or to cheer and support their favourite team/player.
“We have every confidence that the plans our members have come up will enhance these expectations for the T20 League.
“The various CEOs who have been running those stadiums will act as managers for these various teams. They will come out and announce the new names of the teams, the logos of what the teams will look like, and they are the ones who will then appoint the coaches, and the coaches will appoint their own support staff,” he added.
ESPNcricinfo reported about Moroe giving an update on the lingering issues that pertain to the league such as its name to be decided yet and the specifics of the SABC deal to be finalized.
“It won’t be called the Global T20. I hope it’s a name that South Africans will be proud of. We just thought of a uniquely South African name.
“We’re working very hard with SABC in terms of drafting the contract, we just want to wrap up the long-form agreement between us, the SABC as well as our other partners then we can make all the necessary announcements.
“This is purely a step that we need to follow from a risk point of view, giving the disappointment of us having to postpone the league last year. The board has given me a strict mandate that before we announce anything, we have all the necessary agreements in place and they’re signed.” Moroe was quoted as saying to ESPNcricinfo.
