Is cricket financially healthy?

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

One of world sport's biggest rivalries gets underway this week, with England and Australia going head to head in the Ashes. Most matches will last around four or five days, but it's actually the short form of the game that is growing the fastest - and bringing in big audiences and revenues.

The IPL or Indian Premier League, has recently been valued at $18.5bn - that's a T20 format played over a few hours.

So has the sport now changed irreversibly? And does the longer form of the game have a future?

Presenter: Will Bain Producer: Matt Lines

(Royal Challengers Bengaluru's Virat Kohli, along with his former teammates AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle, celebrate with the trophy after winning the Indian Premier League T20 final in June 2025. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:06.7	Hello, I'm Will Bain and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service.
0:11.5	In the streaming age, there's never been more investment flowing into global sport.
0:15.8	With TV audiences in the billions and right steals to match, cricket has very much been part of that growth.
0:22.5	And yet, a strange but important question continues to hang over one of the world's most
0:27.5	watched sports. Just how healthy is it financially?
0:30.9	It is not showing reasons which would make you lose sleep immediately, but there do seem to be signs unless something is done about it.
0:41.0	Some elements of the great game, as we know,
0:43.3	it could really start suffering big time.
0:45.3	And is the divide growing between the economic haves and have-nots?
0:49.7	They only make money from the broadcasters
0:52.4	if they are hosting England, India and to a tiny
0:55.3	extent Australia. So hosting all the other teams doesn't make them any money at all. It costs
0:59.7	them money. As one of the jewels in Global Cricket's Marketing Crown returns this week, today on
1:05.5	Business Daily, we'll be asking just how healthy is the business of professional cricket.
1:13.7	Cricket?
1:15.4	A gentleman's game.
1:17.2	Respectful.
1:18.6	Polite.
1:20.3	But not when it comes to the actions.
1:22.6	Oh, there you go.
1:23.4	143 year feud.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 2 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.