By Andy Frombolton

The ECB’s recent announcement of equal match fees for the England women’s team was widely welcomed as a positive step towards genuine reward parity.

The accompanying statements focussed on principles of equality / morality, and the purpose of this article is not to question this rationale, but to consider some possible consequences.

Absent investors with a long-term viewpoint (e.g., the original IPL franchisees), the fundamental concept that the total amount which any sport can pay its players / officials will be capped by the revenue it generates is both obvious and uncontentious (hence footballers earn more than cricketers who earn more than netball players who earn more than shot-putters) i.e., popularity determines pay. It could be argued therefore that it is dissonant to subsequently argue that within a particular sport male and female players should be paid equally, i.e., reward need not be linked to the value which the same free market assigns to each team’s respective endeavours. The principal counter argument is that the women’s game has been denied the opportunity to develop its own revenue stream (recognising that it is pure conjecture what the potential market might be).

The ECB’s statement acknowledged that the ‘investment’ [i.e., higher fees] is made “ahead of revenues” or, to be more blunt, the additional expenditure must come from the ECB’s existing revenue streams. TV deals – the major source of income – are fixed until the end of 2028 for domestic games and 2031 for ICC events and the value of Metro Bank’s ‘long term’ sponsorship of women’s cricket was agreed before this announcement. Ticket price sensitivity for the women’s game is not well understood and there has to be a concern that higher prices could adversely impact the excellent progress in increasing attendances suggesting that there is limited scope for increasing gate receipts in the short term. 

So, if there’s no more money overall, then paying increased match fees now (whilst also gradually increasing base salaries) must necessitate cuts elsewhere. But to what? The ECB has remained silent on this matter. Cuts to the ECB’s staff? Cuts to marketing budgets? Cuts to coaching? Cuts to the support it provides to grass roots cricket? Or cuts to the women’s game beneath the professional level (as if the vital county game could be less loved)? There will be immediate and ongoing consequences.

However, these risks are dwarfed by the implications of implementing a reward structure which is primarily driven by legal principles of equality. At which point we need to go back to 2012 to consider the (seemingly-unrelated) story concerning Birmingham council mentioned in the article’s title. To recap, the council was taken to court by female employees claiming sex discrimination in respect of pay (simplistically, the council paid male workers, such as refuse collectors, different bonuses to female workers, such as care assistants or cleaners, despite them being employed on the same grade). N.B. This is not to directly equate this situation to male and female cricketers in terms of their respective skills nor to argue that the Birmingham decision was wrong, but to look at what happened next. 

Firstly, expert legal advice had been that backdated claims could only be made within 6 months, but the Supreme Court unexpectedly ruled 6 years. Secondly, although the original claim was made by just 175 women, the ruling extended to anyone in the same position. Subsequently, tens of thousands of new claimants came forward. Despite having already paid out over a billion pounds in claims the council’s current equal pay liability is estimated to be in the region of £650-760m (a sum equivalent to its annual budget) and a few weeks ago it issued at Section 114 notice (akin to becoming bankrupt) principally, although not entirely, due to its inability to meet its liabilities for equal pay. The consequences for Birmingham residents in respect of any non-mandatory services will be rapid and brutal.

Returning to cricket, no former women England cricketers have announced a claim for back pay – but there’s probably a lawyer ready to argue the case. The ECB, having equalised match fees, has also announced a timetable to equalise base salaries, but these timings might easily be forced by events outside of their control in other sports. For instance, the Scottish Football Association (SFA) has just settled a claim with its women’s team regarding equal pay and equivalent benefits to the men in respect of training facilities, hotels and travel, kit, medical and nutritional resources. 

Had the case gone ahead and been lost by the SFA, a legal precedent would have been set that would have had wide-ranging consequences for all sports. In the subsequent press announcements by the Chief Executive there were also interesting allusions to the claimants having possibly accepted elements of the reward/revenue argument: “We must now look forward with a shared goal: to return to major tournaments, working together to bring success on the field that will in turn encourage broadcasters and rights holders to do more to bridge the value gap that remains the biggest obstacle on the journey to equality within the women’s game globally.”

The issue is that the ECB’s position hasn’t settled the debate, it’s catalysed it. Which other groups else might have a claim? Equality legislation doesn’t just cover sex, it also covers other characteristics such as disability and age, so the same arguments which have been powerfully deployed to underpin the women’s claim must surely also apply to the disability teams (since they too have ECB contracts)? But why not also to the various age teams? (They don’t have contracts, but is this ageist?) The potential list is a long one. 

Where will the money come from then?

It would have been possible to design a reward structure which provided equality in those key non-pay areas covered by the SFA claim and gave commitments regarding promotion and marketing of the women’s game, but also included a (significant) element of reward being based on market-determined value. (Pending the time when tv rights and sponsorship can be marketed and sold separately there are objective ways of calculating a fair revenue split.). Such an arrangement would have ensured that the ECB’s total pay and reward bill was managed, but this opportunity has now passed.

The clear end state must be that the women’s game has control (and also responsibility) for its destiny. Player reward would then be an issue for the women’s game alone – determined not by seeking an equitable share of a pooled pot but by the realities of stand-alone revenue generation. As I’ve noted in previous articles, no one can know what this might look like although any comparisons with pay and reward in the men’s game would be moot (although initial baseline (quantum) expectations will have been set by the current ECB deal).

‘Equality of opportunity’ is something which everyone should be able to agree on, but similarly everyone needs to recognise that it’s not the same as ‘equality of outcome’. 

The ECB seems to have implemented a policy without adequately consideration as to how to control it. The danger illustrated by the Birmingham situation is that what begins as a contained, fair and reasonable argument can, and in this instance is quite likely to, spiral in unpredictable and exponential directions; each new claim building on the last. 

The players might be happy, the PCA might be happy, fans of equality might be happy. But will this victory be both fleeting and pyrrhic? For the sake of the game we all love, let’s hope not.