From Barishal's Balance Sheet to Qatar's Trophy: Is Cricket Learning Football's Mistakes?

A tea-table conversation with a Barishal Premier League franchise owner last February was not a local anecdote to me, but a warning. He was complaining about the value of his cricket team's broadcast rights, where a single football match's broadcast rights were sold for more than an entire tournament's rights. This asymmetry lingered in my mind because I have long observed the economics of sports and the transformation of franchise models. Shortly after this incident, the dramatic tiebreaker between Argentina and France in the Qatar World Cup final was not just football's drama, but a manifestation of a larger commercial model crisis in global sports. On that December night, as Lionel Messi lifted the World Cup for Argentina at Lusail Stadium, I was calculating a different equation in my notebook — one that reminds cricket of football's past. The clock read 2:45 AM, Barishal's air had a winter chill, and I wondered if the pressure on national teams to win a trophy was being held hostage by the commercial interests of franchise leagues. This question is the centerpiece of today's discussion. Cricket's current star-driven franchise commercial system is directly imitating football's 2000s model. Just as the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry in football initiated the Galacticos era and helped clubs share in massive broadcast revenues, cricket's T20 leagues have similarly moved into the hands of corporate owners like Shah Rukh Khan and Mukesh Ambani. The Indian Premier League (IPL), since its inception in 2026, is essentially a clone of the English Premier League (EPL) franchise model. But there is a big difference here. Football clubs have centuries of history, their own stadiums, and local fan bases. On the other hand, cricket franchises are corporate-owned, where player transfers, auctions, and star-centric marketing systems operate. The 2026 IPL broadcast rights were sold for 48,390 crore rupees, which can compete with top football leagues. But behind this massive money flow is a thorn: player mental and physical fatigue. Last year, Australian pacer Pat Cummins suffered an injury after playing three consecutive months of IPL, World Test Championship, and Ashes. This incident proves that the cricket calendar is stagnating like football's, where players are merely commodities. We have seen this problem in football over the past two decades; cricket is now walking that same path, but at a faster pace. The biggest danger signal comes from the future of the international calendar. In the discussions about the ICC's new Future Tours Programme (FTP) after 2027, proposals have been made to reduce the number of bilateral series and create more windows for franchise leagues. This decision means the pride of wearing national colors will gradually give way to franchise jerseys. Football also has this eternal conflict between club and country. But in football, FIFA has always been able to maintain some control over club owners because there is an ultimate destination like the World Cup. In cricket's case, the ICC's control is diminishing because the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) controls about 70 percent of world cricket's revenue. This financial dependency weakens the ICC, allowing franchises to run their leagues by their own rules. Just as in football's history, UEFA and FIFA clashed during the Super League project, cricket too may see a major conflict between a group of franchise owners and the ICC in the future. Whatever the outcome of this conflict, the victims will be local cricket and the players who are soldiers of this commercial cycle. In this situation, it is important to learn an important lesson from football's experience. The lower tiers of England's football league pyramid, though financially damaged, survive due to local communities and fan passion. In cricket's case, domestic cricket in smaller countries is almost on the path to extinction. Last year's Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) organization saw numerous problems, one of which was unpaid player salaries. When a domestic franchise league is financially unstable, the foundation of that country's cricket becomes weak. But we are ignoring these problems due to the success of the IPL and other big leagues. In football, leagues like La Liga, Premier League, and Bundesliga have maintained stability through their own financial rules and broadcast deals. Cricket needs a similar unified financial model and central broadcasting system, which will be the foundation for the survival of not just top leagues but the entire cricket ecosystem. Otherwise, we are heading towards a situation where cricket will be limited to just a few big leagues and star players, as has already happened in football. But here, a counter-argument against my own reasoning comes forward. If I say cricket cannot learn from football's mistakes, that would not be right. Because there is a fundamental structural difference between football and cricket. In football, the result of a match is determined in 90 minutes, while a T20 cricket match lasts 3 hours and a Test match lasts five days. Due to this difference in duration, the quantity and quality of cricket content is valued differently than football. A football match's broadcast rights are as valuable as they are because there is a possibility of a goal every minute, while in cricket, the importance of an over or a ball is greater. For this reason, cricket's commercial model cannot be directly copied from football. This argument challenges my own previous claim, as I am saying that cricket's problem is not in imitating football, but in adapting football's experience to its own structure. Cricket needs its own model to find a balance between franchises and national teams, which will be different from football. Without this model, cricket will only repeat football's mistakes, but cannot solve its own problems. Looking to the future, a question becomes clear: Can cricket create its own sustainable model, or will it remain a commercial product in football's shadow? The 2026 T20 World Cup and the 2027 FTP agreement discussions will answer this question. My calculation says that if the ICC cannot create a balanced financial framework for franchise leagues within the next two years, then by 2030, the importance of international cricket will decrease compared to franchise leagues. Then cricket fans will ask only one question: Will they see players wearing their national team jerseys, or only stars arranged on franchise billboards? To find the answer to this question, I must recheck that calculation in my notebook, which I started on the night of the Qatar final. Because football has left its past mistakes open like a book before us, but will cricket have time to read that book, or will it create a new page to write its own story?