Franchise t20 in England. The Question.

The debate about whether England should or shouldn't adopt a franchise t20 system has raised its head again in the wake of the recently concluded Australian Big Bash competition.

Personally I’m open to the idea of franchises in England but have some major concerns about it.

In the Big Bash games drew in big crowds largely due to reasonably priced tickets and the competition being held in the Christmas holidays.

In Australia, the grounds where games were played are much bigger than grounds we have here. How can you get 44,000 fans into a ground for a London Derby when the capacity of Lord’s is 28000?

The way Australia is as a country geographically means 8 teams from 6 cities works. Have 8 teams in the UK and that’s a lot of people who will lose out. One of the best bits of our competition is that you can get down to a local ground after work just in time for the start. Let’s put that into context. You finish work at 5pm in Peterborough. The match at Northampton starts at 6:30. Simple (even with being stuck behind a lorry down most of the A605).

Now let’s try that again for a franchise competition. You finish work at 5pm in Peterborough. The match at Nottingham (the nearest franchise) starts at 6:30. More difficult.

If the Warwickshire/Worcestershire franchise played the Notts/Northants/Leicestershire franchise, is there a guarantee that more fans would turn up for it than they would for a Notts vs Worcestershire game?