I'll try not to be too brutal here, but the harsh reality is that but if you take West Yorkshire,, you have Castleford, Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield. Batley. Featherstone, Bradford, Dewsbury & Halifax....9 sides from the top 22 in the country.

2.4 million residents.......and yet you'd struggle to show me an average of 5,000 per game hosted by all these teams in 2019. Leeds will be the anchor side in SL, Bradford in Champs in terms of average crowds, but the reality is that Leeds v Cas, Wakey, Hudds.....these games should be 20k sell outs......



Next year, half the top flights english clubs could be from one county......it's time for some tough love!

You say this as if it’s a weakness but it could actually be one of the games strengths.

How about 2 SL conferences,

East - Cas, Huddersfield, Leeds, Fev, Wakefield, Bradford, Hull, Hull KR

West - Leigh, Wigan, Sts, Salford, Warrington, Catalans, Toulouse, Halifax

Each team plays the other teams in the same conference home and away and each team from the other conference once, home or away. Scrap Magic or have it for the quarter finals of the CC. Playoffs - top 4 from each conference play E1 v W4 etc.

That would give lots of local Derby’s without the overkill of loop fixtures plus juicy inter conference one offs. I agree with you that they have to be marketed for all their worth - sell outs should be the norm for most of these matches. 8 team conferences only gives 11 home league games which might be a problem but sometimes less is more and increased attendances might help. Otherwise pressure Sky to up the funding for what should be a more attractive competition.

Just a thought.

Not just the money.

If the Hundred encourages more kids to give cricket a go, it secures the player pool for the future both in the mans and womens game

The cricket authorities realise that 4 and 5 day county cricket is failing. The IPL and Big bash leagues have taken off. Why not make changes, attract new audiences, speed the game up, add music, flashy lights, colours .........Well done to English cricket



Ralph take note

Absolutely it’s a guess. I don’t think we could do anything else at the minute but getting offered up to 6 free tickets for every Originals game is not a great sign, I’m sure you’d agree.



I’ve enjoyed it also. It’s not been helped by Covid and the raft of players who pulled out but it’s still be a decent watch. If it is to be a raging success in the future though something will need to give with the scheduling. Once Buttler, Bairstow, Stokes etc went off to play for England (a break in Stokes case) it lost a bit of shine for me. I want to see those guys involved and the best players from other countries but it’s unbelievable the amount of cricket they’re playing nowadays. They can’t fit everything in or not properly at least.

SPARK (a local Telco provider) is showing all the Hundred here in NZ...They are the broadcaster for RLWC 2021 (2) (?) as well as the Premier League, Champions League and all the european comp stuff.

Now I have no idea how much they paid for the rights, but they won't be free from SKY UK, given we have SKY NZ, part of uncle Ruperts Cabal.

The ECB are listed as another sports shown on this channel, so it looks like they've got a good working relationship with the games ruling authority.......as many have said, this 100 comp may well have cost heaps and they may have been giving away free tickets by the bucket load, but it has been shown live in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, India, Pakistan and even the USA.....so there's some money coming in, even if it's not from ticket sales. Then, there's the venues. In many cases owned or leased by county Cricket entities who are controlled in turn by the ECB.....so when 19,000 are reported to be at Edgbaston, that's 19,000 chances to sell beer, wine, cokes, burgers, sandwiches and merchandise.

It may fail....like the London Monarchs, but I can assure you that my nephews loved going to Monarchs games and for a couple of years they didn't miss a game....if the Hundred can get people into the habit of a 3 hour event, then they're on to a winner. As I've said, US300 MILLION is the Buy in for the Indian Premiere League....if the ECB could sell it's 8 sides for 5% of that number, it's already bigger than Superleague

It's not a dig at Warrington, you don't choose the fixtures, it's a dig at the unbalanced nature of having a random extra fixture. The teams who don't have a strong traditional derby opponent have had an easier ride generally. This year someone is getting an extra game against Leigh whilst Saints have to play the mighty Catalans. That isn't fair and all I was suggesting was to replace it with a tournament of 8s or 9s so it's a better event and less unfair. But as ever the paranoia about my username just comes through and everyone goes on the attack without even reading anything I wrote, which isn't remotely controversial.

In many previous seasons, a game against Catalan at Magic would be as good as 2 points.

A bit more of a test this year.

You're judged by what you write, that's quite enough to generate the sort of responses you get, there isn't some vast conspiracy.



Still, compared to most of redvee you're positively rational.

I don't think it is. I'm not suggesting there is a mass conspiracy, just a group of regular posters who lack the intelligence to discuss issues and just obsess over little details to justify attacking. What I wrote about the Magic Weekend fixtures was correct and yet there was a chain of idiotic posts criticising it and completely missing the point of the post.

If its not a dig at Warrington then why mention them? Especially when what you claimed turned out to be complete nonsense. If the fixtures are random then i think we've been dealt a bad hand in the past 7 years. Wigan 3 times, saints 3 times and cas the year they finished top. Easy ride are certainly the words that spring to mind there!

What I wrote was "teams like Warrington have essentially been given a 2 point advantage for years because of it".



Your first Magic Weekend fixtures were: Salford, Huddersfield, Hull KR, Salford, Huddersfield, Widnes, Saints, Saints, Saints

Meanwhile Saints played: Wigan, Wigan, Wigan, Hull KR, Wigan, Wigan, Warrington, Warrington, Warrington



So it's not 'complete nonsense' at all is it. 'For years' doesn't mean the last ones.



My point wasn't that they are trying to help Warrington, it wasn't even about Warrington. It was just highlighting that the concept is very flawed and that it's the ideal event for reduced format game. No one is going to take an 8 a side game like the one Cas are proposing seriously as individual fixtures but this could be a decent showpiece for the sport.