My Thoughts on the Potential Overhaul of County Championship Cricket

My proposal is to introduce a change of start time for the tournament. At present, the games take place during the day, starting at 11am. As this form of cricket lasts for roughly 6 hours of a day, it is excluding key market segments due to work and school. My plan would include the use of floodlights to start the matches at 3pm. There are now permanent floodlights at many of the grounds in England, which have been set up specifically for one day cricket. This is infrastructure that can be re-used for the proposed campaign. It would be classed as day/night cricket, which would allow the games to start in natural light and then have the floodlights take over as needed. This scheme has been successfully implemented in one day cricket, at both international and county levels, over the last 20 years. Other key changes include the use of a pink ball, which has only recently been trialled in a competitive match. This distinctive change would act as a promotional icon to the campaign, and used to create positive associations with the proposed format. The campaign will look at various incentives based on price, as the current format is seen as expensive and inferior value in comparison. The current campaign views one day cricket as direct competition, which needs to be altered in order to attract emerging market segments.