When Raf and I started our journeys in women’s cricket (“journeys” plural – we didn’t know each other back then) no one was being paid. A few of the top players were maybe covering their expenses, but even they were essentially paying to play. When the first England contracts came in, a well-known player (someone you’ve heard of) commented that she’d “earn more working in McDonalds”.
When the players flew to World Cups, they travelled economy and shared rooms in 3-star hotels… and even that was an upgrade on previous eras, where they’d had to pay for their own air-fares and were put up in student halls.
That’s all changed now – certainly for the top international players. They fly business class everywhere they go, stay in the very best 5-star hotels, and earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
For the journalists covering them, things haven’t changed quite so much. There is (I believe) precisely one person in the West who makes a living as a journalist exclusively covering women’s cricket, and they are effectively paid by one of the boards.
Everyone else is flying economy, staying in cheaper hotels or Airbnbs, and still not making money – they are covering their costs via a day job, either covering other sports (including men’s cricket) or (in our cases) something completely different – Raf is a university lecturer, and I am a computer programmer.
On this Women’s Ashes tour there are 3 UK-based written journalists covering every match and only one will walk away from the exercise with more money in their bank account than they started with, because The Guardian (for the first time ever) are covering Raf’s full costs.
This isn’t intended to be a grocery-list of grievances – we get free entry to games, and we are well fed and watered; we are aware that this is a privilege. But it is important context for what follows.
Overnight it has emerged that Sophie Ecclestone refused to do a TV interview with Alex Hartley following comments Hartley made during the recent World Cup that a couple of the England players were unfit. (Note that Hartley did not originally say which players were unfit – but Ecclestone seems to have taken it personally, so… read into that what you will!)
If the England players don’t think they need broadcast media, you can probably imagine what they think of the written press – we are a chore at best (one of them is required to speak to us after every game) and “The Enemy” at worst – Ecclestone’s actions have just brought out into the open what everyone inside the circus already knew.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? It’s a question that has engaged philosophers for over 150 years, but perhaps it should be engaging certain cricketers too. If they hit a ball, and no one is around to write about it, has it actually happened?
Sophie Ecclestone’s exploits last summer for example will go down in history, in Wisden – cricket’s “publication of record” – only because I wrote about them, making far less money than it cost us in hotels and travel to see those games.
If the players think they don’t need us (and their actions here certainly suggest that is the case) then they are sorely mistaken – we are a crucial spoke in the wheels of this rollercoaster.
Whatever she thinks, Sophie Ecclestone isn’t actually paid for being good at tossing a cricket ball at another woman 22 yards away – she is paid to entertain the paying public, and without newspapers, and websites and YouTube channels like CRICKETher nurturing a hardcore fanbase, there is no wider fanbase and ultimately no business class flights, no 5-star hotels, and no hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
And as detailed above, we have little-to-no financial incentive to keep doing this – we do it because we love it – certainly not for the cash. If we stop, women’s cricket loses a crucial spoke in the wheel; and there would be consequences for that.
